Tigers trounce Penn

With eight minutes, 24 seconds left on the clock, the women's basketball team was up by three points against archrival Penn. This was the biggest game the team — including its coach — had ever faced. The Tigers were playing for the Ivy League title.

And under the lights of Jadwin, with the title on the line, sophomore forward Meagan Cowher stepped up, firing off nine consecutive points, giving Princeton an almost unbeatable 12-point lead with just over four minutes to go. From that point on the Tigers coasted to both a 67-55 victory and the championship.

Granted, the title is not Princeton's outright: by beating Harvard on Tuesday night, Dartmouth (21-6 overall, 12-2 Ivy League) ensured that it too would share the title with Princeton (21-6, 12-2) and the third 12-2 team, Brown (18-9 overall). The Big Green, the Bears and the Tigers are all officially Ivy League co-champions, the first time in league history that the title has been split three ways.

But that matters little to the team.

"It's really special," said senior center Becky Brown. "It's been a goal for us since I've come here."

And does it bother her that they have to share the title?

"I'll take an Ivy League championship any way," Brown said.

The Quakers were Princeton's first league opponents at the beginning of January. Then, just as now, the Tigers were a little nervous starting out, and, like yesterday night, the game was evenly matched for most of the first half. Yet then, just as now, Princeton was able to push through in the second half, and win by double digits.

Tuesday night's game started out evenly, with both the Tigers and their opponents struggling to find the basket. Though Princeton drew first blood through Cowher, both teams scored just five times in the opening five minutes, with the Quakers coming out with a slim lead.

It was with a three-pointer — one of just three in the entire game — that senior guard Katy O'Brien gave Princeton its first lead since the opening basket.

The Quakers would have none of it, however, and continued to trouble the Tigers with their strong defense. The next 10 minutes proved nerve-racking, with the two teams swapping the lead four times and with neither team able to build up more than a four point lead.

With four and half minutes left in the first half, however, Princeton took command, going on a 12-5 run that saw them into the locker room with a six-point edge, 35-29.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

While Penn traded baskets with the Tigers for much of the second half, the Quakers proved ultimately unable to recover from that run. The most Penn was able to reduce their deficit by was cutting it down to two, and the door was definitively shut on the Quakers when Cowher charged ahead with her nine-point run.

And though Penn continued to push until the very end, the Princeton defense kept them to just two more field goals and ensured that every league game the Tigers won this season, it was by double-digits — just the second time in league history.

Head coach Richard Barron credited the win to the team's seniors.

"It has been a great, great journey for them and me," he said. "Their roles have changed, but not their commitment."

And he was as nervous as his team.

"I was sweating through my jacket," he said.

The Quakers' shooting frustration was borne out by the team's lackluster field goal percentage. While both Penn and Princeton were fairly equal in the first half, shooting 45.5 percent and 44.4 percent off the floor, respectively, the Tiger defense stepped up the pressure in the second half, reducing the Quakers to just 33.3 percent while the Tigers held steady at 44 percent. Princeton also held the rebounding edge, 39 to 27.

Just as in January, the Tigers also benefited greatly from Penn's largesse. The Quakers' 14 fouls sent the Princeton to the line 25 times —10 more than their opponents — and the Tigers duly converted 18 of those attempts, good for 72 percent, around the team's average.

With this win, the team has set the Princeton record for most wins in a season, 21. But amid the team records, there was one individual record set. While Cowher led the Tigers with 20 points, Brown's 16-point contribution was just enough to make herthe season as the league's highest average scorer.

The unprecedented tie for the title means that the three teams will have to play a series of playoffs to receive the league's automatic NCAA tournament bid. Princeton was randomly chosen to receive a first round bye in a coin flip, meaning the Tigers will only have to play one of those games. The Tigers will meet the winner of the Dartmouth-Brown playoff on Saturday at Yale for the right to contest, for the first time ever, the national title.