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Williamstown, MA- For the second time this year Williams defeated Tufts in overtime, only this time the game was a NESCAC quarterfinal contest. The Ephs Jill Greenberg had a record-breaking performance while scoring 16 points and helping the Ephs triumph, 69-64.
With the win Williams improved to 21-4 and advanced to the semifinals against number one seed Amherst. The game will be played next Saturday in Amherst at 2 p.m. It was the Ephs first victory in the NESCAC Tournament since 2007.
Williams trailed by seven with 3:44 left in the second half.
Eph's head coach Pat Manning on her team's ability to fight back from behind: "Normally when we fall behind we tend to panic a little, but today we kept our cool and were able to pull out a win."
Taylor Shea had 20 points and 8 rebounds, leading the Ephs in scoring. For Tufts, Vanessa Miller had a spectacular game shooting 7-9 from the field and 4-5 from three. She had 20 points overall. Tufts other leading scorer was Colleen Hart who had 18 points and six assists. The Jumbos fell to 18-6.
With 3:44 remaining in regulation Tufts was up 54-47 and was poised to advance to the semifinals of the NESCAC tournament. Then Greenberg hit a jumper in the lane to give Williams a spark and later Shea made a layup to bring Williams within three. Williams called a timeout the score 56-53 and 2:08 left on the clock. Coming out of the timeout Tufts' Ali Rocchi hit an elbow jumper to push the lead back up to five, but Jill Greenberg came back and drilled a three, bringing the crowd to their feet. On the next possession Williams came up with a stop and then got the ball to Taylor Shea who spun and made the layup to tie the game at 58 with 30 seconds remaining. After a timeout Tufts ran down the clock to get the last shot and then missed a foul line jumper, sending the game into overtime.
Williams came out in overtime and scored the first four points, Chessie Jackson hitting a three to start things off. Hart came back and made a jump shot and then Williams fouled on the next two possessions and Tufts hit three of four foul shots to go up by one. With 2:12 left Tufts called a timeout the score tied 64-64. Williams shut Tufts out for the remainder of the game and hit five foul shots to win 69-64.
The game got off to a scintillating start. Both teams were on fire, Tufts shot 6-6 from the floor and Williams shot 3-4. Tufts gained the early advantage going up 12-7, and Williams called a timeout with 16:30 remaining in the half.
Taylor Shea led the way in the early going for the Ephs scoring six out of Williams' first nine points. Two of her layups coming on the fastbreak when she beat her defender down the floor. Shea finished the half with 10 points.
"Taylor has such presence when she is inside that when we were struggling on offense we started to isolate her. After she made a couple of baskets it really opened things up on the perimeter." Coach Manning.
Tufts was led by Colleen Hart who scored eight of Tufts first 14 points. Hart used her quickness to drive by her defender and also used her teammates' back screens to get open. Hart also finished the half with 10 points.
After the timeout Williams was able to tie it up at 16-16 with 12:21. Williams did not score again until there was 5:40 left in the half. Tufts went on an 8-0 run during this stretch making the lead 24-16, but did not take full advantage of Williams' long drought. Williams was hurt by turnovers piling up 13 in the half and they missed easy shots. Taylor Shea final ended the drought with a layup assisted by Jill Greenberg. Tufts called a timeout with 3:04 left in the half and the score reading 24-22 in Tufts favor.
To end the half Tufts went on a 10-3 run lead by Vanessa Miller who had two consecutive threes to send Tufts into the half up 34-25. Miller had 12 points in the first half.
Williams was able to absorb the blow from Tufts at the end of the first half and returned one of their own going on a 12-0 run to start the second half highlighted by a Grace Rehnquist three from deep. The score was 37-34 Williams with 12:40 left when Tiffany Kornegay ended the run a pair of foul shots. Tufts then went on a 6-0 run and were able to hold onto a narrow lead for a large part of the second half.
Williams was able to win despite the fact that they turned the ball over an astonishing 24 times. They made up for the turnovers by out rebounding the Jumbos 50 to 33. Williams shot 43% (22-51) from the field while Tufts only shot 32% (22-68).
With her second assist of the game, Greenberg surpassed the record total of 379 held by Liz Creighton '01.
Greenberg said of her record-breaking performance, "I just try and get everyone involved in the game and find the open player. I had no idea that I broke the record."
