The women’s basketball team returned to Middletown this weekend to take on conference rivals Bates College and Tufts University. Looking to stay atop the standings in the NESCAC, the team avenged a Jan. 4 loss to Bates on Friday night, but dropped its Saturday afternoon match-up against the nationally ranked Jumbos.
Wesleyan rebounded from an early 13-point deficit in the first half to score a huge comeback victory over the Bobcats on Friday. After working their way back to within one point of the lead, the Cardinals went ahead and took it 40-38 with a rare three-pointer from Lucy Sprung ’08. Bates managed to knot it up at 40, but Sprung answered with two lay-ups and Nikki Maletta ’08 went coast-to-coast on consecutive possessions to add four more points of her own. After this crucial 8-0 run, Wesleyan kept the lead and momentum for good, cruising to a 66-55 victory.
The following afternoon against Tufts, the Cardinals played their toughest opponent of the season to date. The Jumbos, ranked 15th in the nation, dominated from the start and jumped out to a 15-point lead midway through the first half. The Cards managed to gather themselves and put on a 12-4 run to end the first half, closing the gap to 10.
However, Wesleyan would never get any closer as the Jumbos’ size and clutch shooting dominated. Offensively, Wesleyan struggled to get anybody open on the perimeter and was overmatched down low by Tufts’s Katie Tausanovitch and Khalilah Ummah, who blocked three shots to add to her NESCAC-leading 44.
Wesleyan didn’t have an answer for Tufts’s offensive play, either. The Cardinals switched to a zone defense and then to a full-court press in the second half, but neither scheme could either trip up the Tufts guards’ shooting and driving or keep the taller Jumbos from grabbing offensive rebounds.
With the loss to Tufts, Wesleyan dropped to a three-way tie for second place in the NESCAC. However, the Cards own the head-to-head tie-breaker over first-place Bowdoin College, and are within striking distance of the top spot in the NESCAC as they travel to Trinity College and Amherst College this weekend.
Leave a Reply