Box Score
MIDDLETON, CT. – Seeking to avenge last
Saturday's final regular season loss to Wesleyan (17-8, 7-3),
the Williams women's basketball team fell far short of their
goal in the first round of the NESCAC
Tournament. The third-seeded Cardinals dominated
the sixth-seeded Ephs on all fronts, 68-49, effectively ending
Williams' season.
The Ephs finish the 2007-2008 with an overall
record of 16-9 and a conference record of 6-4. Wesleyan
advances to the NESCAC Semifinals, and will face off against the
winner of the Middlebury/Tufts game next Saturday at Amherst
College.
Despite playing less than stellar basketball
throughout the first half, the Ephs managed to keep the gap close
in the early going. Lucky to be heading into the
locker room with only an eight-point deficit, Williams could not
bounce back from poor play that has plagued them since last
Friday's match up versus Connecticut College.
The first half was a low scoring affair as
both teams combined for a mere thirty points in the opening
fourteen minutes of play. Nevertheless, powered
by a hefty home crowd, Wesleyan built a 12-2 run to start the
game. Ahead by five at 14-9, Wesleyan's
Nikki Maletta got the friendly home roll on a three point shot to
go ahead 17-9. The Cardinals would one-up that
lead at 3:30 with the score at 25-16.
Williams senior Dominique de la Torre
dominated for a stretch late in the half, rattling off eight points
to narrow the lead to five at 25-20. The run was
short-lived and Wesleyan expanded their lead to ten at 31-21 with
twenty seconds on the clock. The
Ephs capitalized off a sloppy turnover to bring the
first half score to 31-23 and salvage a bit of momentum for the
final twenty minutes.
If Williams had nabbed any momentum in the
final play of the first half, it was certainly lost very early in
the second. Wesleyan opened the second half on a 6-0 run after
converting off three Ephs turnovers, and the Cardinals never looked
back. After quickly building a formidable lead
in the second frame, Wesleyan was able to milk the clock in the
final ten minutes while maintaining effective offensive
execution.
The Ephs shot only 26.5% from the floor in the
second frame, and paired with a much improved 50.0% field-goal
percentage from the opposing team, a comeback appeared out of
reach. Leading by as many as twenty-one points
in the final five minutes, the Wesleyan head coach eventually
subbed out her starters with 1:13 on the clock and her bench
players closed out the game, 68-49.
All five starters contributed solid offensive
minutes for Wesleyan. Lucy Sprung finished the
game with 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting. She
added 12 boards to notch her ninth double-double of the
season. Nikki Maletta added 14 points and 8
boards, while Ali Fourney contributed 11 points. The team's
other two starters, Stephanie Savas and Meredith Lowe, chipped in 7
and 8 points respectively.
De la Torre finished one point shy of
finishing her collegiate career with a double-double, scoring 9
points and demonstrating a huge effort on the glass for the Ephs
with 11 rebounds. Chessie Jackson led the team
with 17 points, while Mika Peterman added 11
points.
