Williamstown, MA - The Williams College Ephs (3-0) coming off their strong start to the season winning the Morin Memorial Tournament, played the visiting University of Hartford Hawks (0-2). The hard Williams defense would be too much for the Hawks who only shot 25% from the field. In an all-around offensive effort, the bench players for Williams combined for 27 points, helping Williams earn a 59-32 win.
It was a late Wednesday night but the energy in Chandler Gymnasium was palpable. Both teams came out the gate loud and aggressive, working their way into the paint for contested lay-ups or free throws. To match this was the strong interior defense from the Ephs, one of the most promising signs from their last two games, that and rebounding. The defense marked most of the first quarter with neither team's shots falling as much as they would have liked. However, with sophomore big
Tatum Leuenberger getting an early 4 points and senior
Kate Keenan coming off the bench and scoring 5 on her first two shots, Williams had an early 12-4 lead. After a late timeout, the Hawks's offense made some adjustments, scoring on two consecutive possessions and shrinking the lead to 12-8 heading into the second quarter.
The Ephs came into the second determined to grow their lead.
Ellie Tounkara hit an early 3 and senior captain
Arianna Gerig, recently named to the NEWBA Second Team of the Week, ran the floor and assisted on
Mairi Smith's shot, 17-8. The quarter went along quietly until Williams turned it up. Running a double-screen action, Leuenberger rolled to the top of the key and scored the three. First-year point guard
Micah Walton followed that up with a mid-range jumper and a subsequent back court steal for an easy lay-up, 25-12. However, Hartford closed the quarter on a 6-0 run consisting of inside baskets to bring the score to 26-18 heading into halftime.
Arianna Gerig came out of the locker room poised, scoring on two consecutive drives to bring Williams up to 30 points. Unlike the Ephs' past two opponents, the Hawks were not effective from behind the arc, shooting 0-15. So much of their play came from the paint where they pulled together another 6-0 run early in the third quarter. Walton ended this with another beautiful spot-up mid-range jumper, 32-24. She finished with 7 points on the night. Tounkara and Smith made it a double-digit lead with assisted interior scoring, 36-24. On a different note, the Ephs' full-court press, which showed strong glimpses in the past two games, truly came together tonight. The Hawks had 22 turnovers and the Ephs had 10 steals in the game. Continuing her great play this season, 6th-woman
Cortland McBarron played hard defense all night and finished an and-one in the third. She also grabbed a rebound off her missed free-throw, leading to a bucket from
Izzy Sullivan. Williams had a comfortable 42-25 after three quarters.
The starters rested in the fourth quarter in this game and the depth of the Eph bench was on full display.
Hanorah Murphy had her first points, making a three ogg an assist from
Logan Coster. Most important was the second unit maintained the Ephs' focus on rebounding and driving to grow the lead.
Kate Keenan on a fast-break made an and-one; she would score 9 points and finished as Williams's leading scorer. Also notably,
Hannah Surrette, a first-year guard from Woburn, Mass, made her first career points, converting a free throw after getting fouled on a rebound. This bench effort brought the final score to 59-32.
On the win, head coach
Pat Manning said, "We had at least 4 or 5 30-second violations… I feel like our defense has done good things, our rebounding has done good things, but our offense is going to be the last thing to come. We are 3-0 because of our defense and rebounding… I'm really proud of our bench play tonight. Definitely
Skylar Chui stood out,
Izzy Sullivan came in and made immediate contributions, Cortland had 7 boards, and Kate did really well coming in and shooting 4-5. A strength of our team is our depth."
The Ephs look to stay undefeated as they hit the road and travel to Saratoga Springs to play Skidmore College on Saturday, November 23rd at 3 pm.
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