Williamstown, MA - The Williams College Ephs (10-4) came off a seven-game win streak with their previous victory being yesterday in overtime against NESCAC rival Wesleyan University. In this game, they met the Trinity College Bantams (11-4).
Arianna Gerig delivered 22 points and
Micah Walton had 18 but the Trinity shooting was too much for the Ephs. Bantam guard Olivia Vick scored 33 points on 53% field goal percentage and Williams lost 80-65.
The first points came from yesterday's hero, guard
Micah Walton who had her career-high of 31 points in the last outing. She picked up where she left off and connected on a mid-range jumper. However following this, the Bantams strung together a 6-0 run built on passing plays and shifty moves around the basket. But the Ephs would return with a 6-0 run of their own with season leading-scorer
Arianna Gerig scoring off of solo drives, 8-6 Williams. Williams first-year
Skylar Chui played strong minutes off the bench, recording multiple offensive rebounds, a corner three, and valuable hustle defensive efforts. But with time ticking down in the quarter, Trinity converted on two open three-point attempts. The Williams defense has been much improved this season but their perimeter defense at times this season struggled and this was one of those games with Trinity shooting 60% from three. Yet with the help of a buzzer-beater jumper from Walton, the Ephs only trailed by one at the end of the quarter, 18-17.
Williams started the second quarter strong with
Mairi Smith finishing on a post-spin jumper and Gerig drawing fouls on her drive attempts. The Ephs shooting also picked up this quarter with
Cortland McBarron making a corner shot and
Ellie Tounkara connecting on a wing-three. Despite this, the game remained close with the Bantam shot-creation ability seeming too much for Williams to handle. Williams did take a one-point lead but Trinity went on a late 8-0 run fueled by their shooting efforts and at halftime the Ephs trailed 37-32.
After halftime, the Ephs strung together successful post-makes to make it a one-possession game but just like the previous quarter, this fell short to Trinity's shooting who did not seem to miss whenever they had a clean look. However, Williams put faith in their bench and it proved instrumental in getting back into the game.
Skylar Chui and
Tatum Leuenberger had a large impact on the defensive end. On the offensive end, Tounkara drained two threes to chip into the Trinity lead. With less than a few minutes remaining, the Bantams led 49-46 but closed out the quarter strong with their star player, sophomore Olivia Vick, seeming unstoppable on offense. Before the final quarter, the score was 55-46 Trinity.
So far this season and throughout their current win streak, Williams has been impressively dominant in clutch-time situations. Gerig delivered six points to start the quarter with 4 points coming from free throw shooting but the story of last quarter persisted. Williams could not stop Vick who finished with her career high of 33 points. She delivered 7 points for Trinity to start the quarter and forced the Eph timeout with them trailing by 11. Halfway through the quarter,
Logan Coster gave the Ephs their last chance at a comeback with a wing-three, 70-57. Walton had a three and an and-one to keep the Ephs within 10. However, the hope slipped away with an unfortunate open miss, and the game was sealed. The seven-game Williams win streak came to an end with the 80-65 loss to Trinity.
On the upsetting defeat, head coach
Pat Manning said, "I thought we competed hard in the beginning. In the second half, we did not compete as hard as we needed to and that was frustrating because I know we are better than that. I give Trinity a lot of credit as they kept going and we needed to respond better… We knew they liked to shoot and they had some shots that were earned but there were way too many open threes. We knew what we had to do but we did not follow through. I'm not happy with how we competed and we did not follow the scouting report… I thought Logan and Sky did a really good job off the bench but we did not sustain the intensity. Every NESCAC team is good and every game is a fight. We will learn from this one and watch film and see what we can do and be ready to compete for 40 minutes."
Williams looks to learn from this loss and make adjustments before their series of upcoming NESCAC road games with the first of which coming against Tufts University on Friday, January 17th at 7 pm.
