Box Score WILLIAMSTOWN, MA—If it's November, the Williams women's basketball team must be 5-0. An unlikely aphorism, perhaps, but an increasingly true one.
The Ephs fought off an early second half rally from cross-state rival Babson (3-1) and ground out a 61-49 win over the Beavers to conclude Williams Tip-Off Classic on Saturday afternoon. Williams has now won its first five games in each of its last five seasons; last year, they started 12-0. So what's the secret to the Ephs' early-season success? "Good players," said Eph coach Pat Manning with a laugh.
The win was also the Ephs' eighth straight over the Beavers, who had scored at least 66 points in each of their first three games this year; Babson last defeated the Ephs in 2001. "This was the toughest game we've had so far," said Manning "Babson as a team is a team that can hurt you a lot of ways. For us to hold them to 49—I'm just really happy with our defense."
Early in the second half, both of the Ephs' streaks looked to be in jeopardy. Down 30-20 at the break, the Beavers opened the second period with a 13-4 run during which they dominated the Ephs in the paint and on the break, pulling to within one when Giovanna Pickering drove to the basket from beyond the arc and got her shot to go in off the back of the rim with 14:50 to play. "They're great in transition," said Manning. "They hurt us with that spurt where they were getting those easy baskets."
On the ensuing possession, the Ephs struggled to find a shooting lane. With the seconds ticking down, Ellen Cook launched a 23-footer from beyond the top of the key off the glass and in, bringing the Williams bench to its feet. On the Ephs' next trip up the court, she drilled another, this time from the corner. All at once, the Ephs led by seven again, prompting Babson coach Judy Blinstrub to use a 30-second timeout. "That really changed everything," said Manning of Cook's back-to-back threes. "Ellen's tough to stop because she can beat you in so many ways. And she never gets nervous."
Though the Beavers whittled the score to 40-36 after the break, they would get no closer for the rest of the contest. As it has so frequently on the young season, the Ephs got plenty of help from their bench, with Jane Thompson (12 points) and Oge Uwanaka (11 points, nine rebounds) providing critical spark for the Ephs each time the Beavers tried to rally. The Ephs then put the game out of reach with just over 90 seconds to play, courtesy gritty three-point play from Cook, who led the Ephs with 15 points, which made the score 57-47.
Babson's Pickering led all scorers with 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting, accounting for just under half of her team's total. Eight of those points came in the game's first 7:18, when Pickering scored two-thirds of Babson's points and consistently managed to drive to the rim on fellow guard Amanni Fernandez.
Pickering, Uwanaka and Cook were all named to the All-Tournament team, with Misericordia's Sam Baro and Worcester State's Shannen El-Qasem rounding out the weekend's top five.
The Ephs will close out their pre-Thanksgiving schedule with a 5:00 p.m. tilt against Springfield in Chandler Gym on Tuesday. Babson is now off until December 3, when it will visit MIT at 7:00 p.m.
