The women’s basketball season ended for Wesleyan on Saturday with a semifinals exit against Tufts in the NESCAC tournament. Having already lost handily to Tufts at home in regular season play, the Cardinals knew that they would have their hands full with the Jumbos. However, Wesleyan was full of confidence from coming off of two consecutive important victories over rival Williams as it headed into the second round of the NESCACs.
The aptly named Jumbos boasted a considerably taller starting five than Wesleyan, but the Cards had a full week of practice to plan accordingly.
“We changed the game plan around for them,” said guard Stephanie Savas ’08. “They’re just such a big team.”
Through the first quarter of the game, it appeared that Wesleyan had made the necessary adjustments. The cards attempted to run the Jumbos out of the building, and established an eight-point lead only six minutes into the contest.
Tufts weathered Wesleyan’s initial onslaught. The Jumbos threw up nine three-point attempts in the first half alone while collecting only 12 points from their starting frontcourt. As fiery as the Cards were at the beginning of the half, Tufts ended it on an equally torrid pace with a 12-3 run that lifted the Jumbos to their own eight-point lead.
Wesleyan hit an impressive 62 percent from the field in at the start of the first half, but the Cardinals’ shots simply refused to fall in the second period. To make matters worse for the Cards, the Jumbos picked up where they left after the half, reeling off a 14-4 run which increased their lead to 51-33.
As Wesleyan lost its ability to push the fast-paced attack, Tufts was able to slow down the game and get solid second-half production out of 6′ 3” forward Katie Tausanovitch and 6′ 1” forward Kalilah Ummah. The closest the Cards got to the lead in the final quarter was a three-pointer from Nikki Maletta ’09 which brought Wesleyan within 15.
The leading scorer for the Cardinals was Ali Fourney ’09, who contributed 13 points in the 67-50 loss. A key to the Jumbos’ victory was frustrating Wesleyan forward Lucy Sprung ’08, holding the prolific post player to six points and two rebounds. Lacking the size to match up head to head with Tufts, the Cards had to live and die with the shot on Saturday, and eventually the numbers won out.
“We executed everything we needed to do in order to beat them,” said Savas, who scored six of her eight points in the first half. “But they executed, too.”
Wesleyan’s season officially ended the following day with the setting of the Division III national tournament bracket. Amherst received an automatic spot in the tournament for winning the NESCAC tournament, and nationally-ranked Tufts got an at-large bid. Wesleyan also stood a good chance of winning an at-large bid, but instead lost out to Bowdoin-even though the Cards have a better conference ranking and a head-to-head victory over the Polar Bears.
Despite the playoff loss and the national tournament snub, the Cardinals view their season as a success.
“Our goals at the beginning of the season were to make the tournament and then make it as far as we could go,” Savas said.
Wesleyan produced the two highest scorers in the NESCAC this year – Fourney and Sprung – and once again established itself as a top team in the conference.
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