Box Score WILLIMANTIC, CT. — The Williams College women's basketball team withstood a furious late rally by Eastern Connecticut Sunday, walking away with a 70-64 victory to improve to 7-0 on the season.
The Ephs led by 16 at the half and as many as 23 in the second half before the Warriors began to rally, eventually cutting the deficit to four with 31.2 seconds remaining in the game on a lay-up by Erin Brooks.
However Eph senior captain Ellen Cook hit 3 of 4 free throws in the final 12 seconds and the Ephs held on. Cook led Williams with 21 points, followed by Kellie Macdonald with 19, Devon Caveney with 14 and Lauren McCall with eight.
Brooks came off the bench to lead EConn with 20 points, while Jill Ritrosky notched 18 for the Warriors, who fell to 4-2.
"We knew this would be a very tough non-conference game," Ephs' head coach Pat Manning said. "So any time you can win a game like this on the road, it's a big win. I thought it was a good lesson for our team, and that Ellen and Kellie really led the way for us at crunch time."
An 11-0 run late in the first half helped the Ephs build that 16-point halftime advantage. Williams held a precarious 24-20 lead when Macdonald sank a pair of free throws — the Ephs were 9 of 9 from the foul line in the half — for a 26-20 lead.
McCall grabbed a defensive rebound off a Brooks miss at the other end and started a quick transition that eneded with a Caveney lay-up. That was followed by a McCall block that led to a Fernandez pass over the top of the EConn defense and another Caveney lay-in for a 30-20 advantage.
Following a Warrior turnover, McCall hit a three-pointer from the top of the key with 2:34 remaining in the half for a 13-point lead. After a Warrior travel, McCall drained a long two-pointer for a 15-point advantage with two minutes left. Macdonald drained a 15-foot jumper with six seconds left that sent Williams into the locker room up 39-23.
Caveney (13), Cook (11) and Macdonald (10) all reached double figures by halftime. The Ephs shot 52.9 percent (14 of 27) from the floor and forced 13 EConn turnovers in the half.
Cook, who scored the Ephs' first seven points of the game, started off the second half similarly with a jumper and a lay-up that immediately stretched the Williams lead to 20 with 17:42 remaining. The Ephs lead hovered between 19 and 23 for much of the next 10 minutes, and they still held a 63-43 lead with 7:45 to go after Katie Litman drained a lay-up after driving the lane on a give-and-go with Macdonald.
But the Ephs shut down after that, scoring only 3 points over the next 7:30. The Warriors came as close as three points with 12 seconds remaining, before Cook sealed the results with her free throws.
"We knew EConn is a very explosive team," Manning said. "We knew they could come back at any time. They did a much better job on the glass than we did, and their 17 offensive rebounds really hurt us because they were getting some easy looks off of them. That's something we realy have to improve on going forward."
