Women's Basketball: Tigers win battle of top mid-majors, 68-51

Coming off of its first win over a Big East team since 1997, the women’s basketball team held on for its 25th consecutive victory at Jadwin Gymnasium, defeating Marist 68-51 on Monday night.

The Red Foxes kept the game close in the first half, scoring 18 of their 30 points off three-pointers, but an unconventional offensive approach by the Tigers helped them pull ahead with two strong runs in the second half.

After going 8-for-10 from the field and scoring 18 total points against Villanova on Saturday, senior center and co-captain Devona Allgood was double and triple-teamed by the Red Foxes’ defense all night. Princeton responded by relying on the three-pointer and the drive much more than post play, taking 28 three-pointers, its most since a 2007 home game against Syracuse.

“In the first half we took them out of balance, and in the second half we did a better job taking good shots,” head coach Courtney Banghart said.

The Tigers led 32-30 at the half, and Marist kept it close for the first seven minutes of the second period. With the score tied at 38 and 13 minutes remaining, senior guard Laura Johnson hit a three-pointer, igniting a 10-2 run that put the Tigers ahead for good.

Though Marist scored three straight points to end the run and get back in the game, Johnson — who finished the night with 13 points — extended the lead to 11 points with three-pointers on two consecutive possessions.

“They’re a very good double of the post team, so when we throw it inside it’s not always going to be a quick post move,” junior forward Kate Miller said. “That really opened up the outside for us.”

Junior point guard Lauren Polansky in particular took advantage of the Tigers’ increased focus on the perimeter game, going 5-for-6 from the field for a career-high 12 points.

“Coming into the game, I wasn’t necessarily planning on doing more than I normally do,” Polansky said. “They ended up trying to sag in a bit, trying to double down on the post, so the shots opened up. It was a lot of getting the ball in and kicking it back out.”

Marist closed the lead to seven with just under four minutes to go, but aggressive attacks from junior forward Niveen Rasheed and Miller helped Princeton turn the once-close game into a 17-point blowout in the final minutes.

The win came after Princeton received nine votes in the Associated Press poll, moving into the “others receiving votes” category for the first time this season.

Princeton came out looking overmatched in the first five minutes of the first half, as the Red Foxes’ agile guards faked out and drove past their defenders on the offensive end. Guard Corielle Yarde, who led her team with seven first-half points, posed a problem to the Tigers, as neither senior guard Lauren Edwards nor Rasheed could quite figure out how to guard her.

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“We were switching one through four, and we were having a little miscommunication,” said Rasheed, who led the victors with 18 points. “It was a little dead in the gym tonight, so we didn’t have that much energy, so our talking was lacking. Once we started talking more, our switches were better and we closed on the three a little more.”

But three-pointers from Miller and Polansky kept Princeton in the game early on, and a new focus on forcing turnovers after the first timeout limited Marist’s scoring opportunities.

Princeton shot a strong 14-for-31 during the first half, but Marist’s 6-for-13 performance from behind the arc kept the visitors in the game despite the Tigers’ consistent offensive performance.

Sophomore guard Nicole Hung, who led the Tigers with four assists, provided a spark to the offense off the bench with sharp passes to the inside leading to open layups.

The win tonight marked the second in a row for the Tigers against a team that may make NCAA Tournament this season. Marist, the defending Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference champion, has made six straight March Madness appearances and won its first-round game last year, eventually leading Duke for a large portion of its second-round matchup.

“We scheduled a really difficult preseason, and that was by design,” Polansky said. “These have been two great wins. We’re going to have a tough road ahead of us, so hopefully this will help us prepare.”