The women’s basketball team battled in two games this weekend against Cornell University and Columbia University, but was swept by its New York rivals, falling to Cornell (12-10, 4-4 Ivy) 78-59 on Friday before dropping a closer match to the Lions (5-17, 2-6 Ivy) 65-59. The team (3-19, 0-8 Ivy) returned home from a six-game road streak for the games.
“It’s going to take time to get to where I want to be,” head coach Belle Koclanes said. “With that said, I hope people have really been following us closely so that they can see our players are getting better. Their decision making is improving. It’s not all about the win/loss column.”
The match against the Big Red was close until 13 minutes left in the second half, when the visitors’ 30-11 run blew the game open. The game was tied at 48 before Cornell rattled off nine straight points and forced the Big Green to play catchup. The Dartmouth women pulled the game back within five, but small runs by the Big Red negated any comeback attempt.
The Big Green came out strong in the first half, playing to a 36-30 deficit. Overall, the team shot 44 percent from the floor, but Dartmouth surrendered a 55 percent clip to the Big Red. Lakin Roland ’16 led the Big Green in points with 17 while Fanni Szabo ’17 pitched in with 14 of her own.
On Saturday, the Big Green women hosted Columbia in the Pink Zone game for breast cancer awareness as part of the Play 4Kay weekend in women’s college basketball. Dartmouth showed some marked improvement in this contest, hanging with the Lions until an 18-7 run that began with 13:57 left in the game.
Roland and Nicola Zimmer ’14 set career-highs with 22 and 20 points, respectively. Roland added 11 boards for another double-double. The two players contributed over 70 percent of the team’s offense as the rest of the Big Green women struggled to find rhythm on offense. The rest of the team went 6-27 from the floor. Szabo was hampered by foul trouble and an off night shooting the ball, only scoring seven points on 3-11 shooting in 24 minutes of play.
The team held the visitors scoreless for nearly four minutes, but could only build a 6-0 lead over that stretch. The Lions responded with a 14-2 run to take the lead.
“We were feeling good,” Zimmer said. “I think we started with seven stops on defense. We were feeling that we were in it and maintaining that consistency.”
As the game progressed, Dartmouth found itself down 14-8, but Roland sunk a key bucket to keep the Big Green within striking distance, quickly answered by the Lions but supported by another Dartmouth basket. Columbia attempted to shoot but instead slammed the ball at the backboard, opening up the court for a quick Big Green score. Columbia’s Taylor Ward kept the Big Green at arm’s length by swishing a third court three-pointer.
The score was 28-24 when the announcer called the last minute of play. After taking two points from free throws, Dartmouth turned over the ball and lost possession in the Lions’ territory, a mistake Columbia capitalized on in the closing seconds of the half, ending play with a 30-26 lead over the Big Green. During halftime, Koclanes said she worked with team to provide solutions to problems they faced on the court.
“I knock on the door and I ask them if they’re ready for solutions,” she said. “We made our adjustments, and we talked about what we’re doing well. We had to do a better job defending 00. She’s a very good player, so just trying to limit her touches and scoring was key.”
Columbia’s number 00, junior Miwa Tachibana, finished with 17 points to lead a balanced Columbia attack that had three players in double figures.
Dartmouth tied the game 30-30 less than a minute and a half into the second half. Columbia then took a small lead, but the Big Green tied it up again after forcing a wasted shot by Columbia as the shot clock expired. The two teams battled for the lead and, with less than 15 minutes of play left, it was Columbia by two after two free throws.
Within seconds, Roland completed a perfect layup and gave the Big Green the lead for the first time since the opening minutes of the game by putting away another basket from just within the arc. The Lions, however, turned their 38-36 deficit into a 54-45 advantage over the course of nearly seven minutes.
The Big Green held the advantage on the glass, in points off turnovers and dominated second chance points 14-4. However, Columbia’s depth proved to be the difference as the Lions’ bench outscored the Big Green’s 12-4.
“I just want to win,” Roland said. “It was easy to get rebounds in their zone and box them out. Converting on that is just a matter of focusing.”
In the face of loss and adversity, Koclanes said, the Pink Zone Game helped the Big Green maintain perspective.
“We’ve been talking a lot about fight, particularly today,” she said. “Just having some perspective about how here we are, blessed to be healthy and competing against an opponent as opposed to competing against a disease. In life, it’s either fight or flight, and we are going to continue to fight to be a better team.”
The team stays at home next weekend to host Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania at Leede Arena. Tip-off for both games is scheduled for 7 p.m.
