Medford, Mass - After an upsetting NESCAC loss last week against Trinity College, the Williams College Ephs (10-5) looked to make amends against the Tufts University Jumbos (10-6), in the first game of their eight-game road trip. Tufts led the entire game and while the Ephs shrunk the lead to a one-possession game on multiple occasions, the Jumbos out shot Williams and played strong when it mattered most for a final score of 61-52.
Tufts came out with early energy, taking advantage of the fast break game and grabbing backcourt steals. The Ephs, however, stuck to their usual recipe, consisting of drives from senior captain
Arianna Gerig into the Jumbo zone defense. Yet both teams went on a drought for the second half of the quarter, with Williams especially, shooting only 14% in the first 10 minutes. On the last Tufts possession, they converted a wing three for an early 12-6 lead.
The Jumbos picked up right where they left off in the first quarter with another wing three. Williams returned with
Ellie Tounkara catching
Logan Coster on the drive for the finish. Tounkara added her first three to close in on the Tufts lead. She finished as the leading scorer for the Ephs with 15 points. On the defensive end, the Jumbos did not slow down with the Eph interior defense offering too many easy opportunities down low, 19-13 Tufts. With Gerig meeting many double teams on her catch, Williams made adjustments and spread their offense load to
Micah Walton and
Tatum Leuenberger. Walton connected on her two mid-range jumpers and Leuenberger did the same on a wing three to make it a one-point game. Unfortunately for the Ephs, the Jumbos answered this push with an 8-0 run built on their efficient three-point shooting, 27-18. Williams's largest weakness in the season comes from behind the arc with their three-point shooting typically trailing behind the opposing team's by a significant margin. The Ephs are much improved with rebounding and out rebounded Tufts, but this has likely come through sacrificing their outside defense. Tufts capped off their strong corner with a buzzer-beater finish at the rim for the 29-20 lead heading into halftime.
Coming out of halftime, Williams continued giving the green light to Tounkara and she went on an individual 7-0 run to claw the Ephs back into the game but the Tufts shooting did not slow down either. The pull-up game worked for Tufts in the first half and built them a double-digit lead halfway through the third, 38-27. Besides Tounkara, the Ephs starters struggled offensively and were forced to find solutions with their bench players. Williams found success from Leuenberger who finished with 14 points and Coster who added a basket and contributed strong defensive minutes. Closing out the quarter, Walton made a pull-up three and shrunk the lead to 43-37 at the end of the third quarter.
So far this season, the Ephs have played notably clutch. The large exception to this would be their previous game against Trinity where down the stretch they seemed to struggle, so today they were determined to not make the same mistakes. Leuenberger started the fourth with an and-one three-point bomb, making it a one-possession game. But down the stretch, both teams were evenly matched with Williams turning to Leuenberger with Gerig struggling and Tufts looking for first-year Monet Witherspoon. Witherspoon finished with 23 points and many of these came in the fourth quarter on a various range of baskets, 51-43 halfway through the quarter. Despite this performance, the Ephs were not deterred and first-year
Skylar Chui finished a strongly-contested inside basket along with Gerig making a free throw and converting a drive, 51-47. However, this would be the last spark of hope for the Ephs. A series of turnovers and defensive mishaps cost the Ephs and Tufts held strong to win 61-52.
On the offensive struggles and the NESCAC games moving forward, Eph head coach
Pat Manning said, "We played better in the second half but we didn't do enough. I'd like to highlight Tatum, Logan, and Skylar. Skylar got 6 rebounds, Tatum had some key shots, and Logan had key deflections. Ellie shot really well as well… Early on we took good shots that did not go in and I think that got to us and we started getting frustrated and then started taking rushed shots. We did not play at the pace we needed to play. We did a better job with that in the second half but we let our early misses get to us and we are going to try to move on for tomorrow."
The Eph road trip will continue tomorrow in New London, Connecticut where they play Connecticut College at 3 pm.
