"We're sorely disappointed," head coach Chris Wielgus said. "This is a storied program. It's been a benchmark in the Ivy League. We still have one more game, and we have to finish strong and do the best we can."
The two consecutive losses mark the first time that the Big Green (11-16, 6-7 Ivy) has been swept in an Ivy League doubleheader since the weekend of Feb. 16, 2007.
"The game of basketball is brutally honest and fair the best teams win, and we were not one of the better teams," Wielgus said. "The best teams win, and that's what happened."
If Princeton pulls off a victory over the Quakers (2-25, 1-12 Ivy) next Tuesday, the Tigers will become the first Ivy team since the 2002-2003 Harvard squad to notch a 14-0 conference record.
On Friday, the Princeton juggernaut ran up a double-digit advantage en route to a 64-43 win.
"The weekend would have been more successful if we had maintained the intensity that we had during the first half against Princeton," Margaret Smith '10 said.
The first half was back-and-forth late until a spurt led by Sasha Dosenko '12 and Meghan McFee '11 broke an 18-18 tie to give the home team some momentum heading into intermission.
Before Friday, Dartmouth had not lost a game when leading at halftime all this season.
Despite a five-point advantage late in the first half, a sputtering Dartmouth attack and foul trouble allowed the potent Princeton offense to take over.
"We struggled in the second half against Princeton because we did not score often enough on offense, and we had a few breakdowns on the defensive end," Smith said.
Led by sophomore guard Lauren Edwards, the Tigers climbed to an eight-point lead at 41-33 following a 13-3 surge.
The women's squad would battle back from an ensuing 7-0 Princeton run to cut the deficit to seven at 48-39, but the Big Green's output ran dry in the last five minutes, during which the Tigers erupted for 12 consecutive points to take a commanding 21-point advantage.
"Our defense was not as great during the second half, and [Princeton] played zone defenses, which we have struggled with all season," Brittney Smith '11 said.
Dartmouth scored just four more points in the remainder of the game, as Princeton rode its 43-point second half to sweep the season series against the Big Green.
Brittney Smith posted a team-high 12 points and 10 rebounds, while Faziah Steen-Ngalamulume '13 added 11 points.
On Saturday, the women's squad looked to rebound for Senior Night against Penn in its final home game of the season. The Big Green offense shot a subpar 23.3 percent from the field to finish with a season-low 31 points.
Uncharacteristic defensive miscues and poor rebounding by Dartmouth allowed the Quakers to shoot 41.7 percent from the floor and to control the boards, 19-10. The Big Green trailed by a score of 24-18 at halftime.
In the second half, a quick jumper by Steen-Ngalamulume was not enough to jolt the slumping Big Green offense, as Penn further capitalized on Dartmouth's shooting woes by exploding for a 14-0 run to take an 18 point advantage at 38-20.
A short-lived comeback and a torrent of long-range attempts came to no avail for the Big Green, who watched as Penn drained down the clock en route to the Quakers' first Ivy win of the season.
The women's squad will conclude the 2009-2010 regular season on the road with a final showdown against Harvard at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Cambridge, Mass.
