Women's Basketball: Weekend sweep provides chance to clinch at home

For Princeton, the milestone indicated a culmination of the goal the team made midway through the Ivy League season to continue improving and, in the words of head coach Courtney Banghart, to go from being a good team to a great team.

“To win 20 games in a season is a huge benchmark, especially considering our schedule is very challenging,” Banghart said. “I’m really pleased about that, but we want to try to win the Ivy League title and go from there, so we knew we had to get these two on the road.”

Heading into the Cornell game, the Tigers were careful to avoid overconfidence against a last-place team. The Big Red, a relatively young team, had nothing to lose as a result of their last-place position. They kept up with Princeton in a close first half at Jadwin Gymnasium two weeks ago, although the Tigers pulled away for a 65-43 victory.

After the tipoff, sophomore forward Kate Miller put back an offensive rebound, giving Princeton a lead it would never relinquish. The Tigers had already amassed a 19-point advantage with just over 10 minutes remaining in the half when junior forward Lauren Edwards capped off an 11-2 Princeton run with a three-pointer. While the Tigers only outscored the Big Red by five in the second half, Cornell managed just 16 first-half points, which put it more or less out of the game as it headed into the locker room for halftime.

“Everybody contributed, and everybody got good looks and took advantage of their strengths,” Edwards said. “The shots were just falling that night.”

In what was one of their strongest offensive performances of the season, the Tigers shot 49 percent from the field, their highest percentage so far in conference play. Edwards led the effort and all scorers with 16 points on 7-9 shooting and added two steals and two assists. Senior guard and co-captain Addie Micir added 14 points and shot 4-5 from downtown, including a goal that increased Princeton’s lead to 18 in the first half.

“We had a great attack against their zone, we forced them out of their zone, and then we had a great attack against their man,” Banghart said. “We just shared the ball really well, and when we do that we shoot a pretty high percentage.”

Heading to Levien Gymnasium in Manhattan, N.Y., on Saturday night, the Tigers prepared to face a Columbia team that averaged 23 more points at its home gym than on the road. While Princeton limited the Lions (6-20, 5-7) to just 35 points in a Princeton victory at Jadwin earlier this month — the Tigers’ best defensive performance of the season — the team knew it was going to have to concentrate on defense on the road.

“We knew that Columbia was going to come out and play hard, so we had to straighten up on the defensive end and stop them from getting a lot of threes up,” Micir said. “We played good team defense on the post and helped out on the drive, because we were really focused on not giving away that three-point shot and sometimes that can expose you a little bit.”

With two of their primary post players’ playing time limited due to injuries — junior center Devona Allgood hurt her ankle before the game on Friday and sophomore center Meg Bowen hurt her shoulder early in the Columbia game — the Tigers benefited from strong performances up top by Miller, who scored 13 points, and freshman forward Kristen Helmstetter, who added six points in 16 minutes off the bench. While Columbia never held the lead, it managed to keep up and prevent the Tigers from running away with it in the first half.

Nevertheless, Princeton limited Columbia to 15 points below its home average in the 65-52 victory. This game was only fourth-place Columbia’s second home loss in conference play, along with a buzzer-beating defeat to Harvard.

The Tigers host Dartmouth on Friday before facing Harvard the following evening. A sweep would clinch the Ivy League championship and a second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance.