In an important weekend of Ivy League play at Jadwin Gymnasium, Princeton women’s basketball (22–4 overall, 12–1 Ivy) defeated the Harvard Crimson (15–11, 8–5) and blew past the Dartmouth Big Green (7–18, 1–12). Should the Tigers win their final regular season game next weekend against the Penn Quakers (15-11, 7-6), the Tigers will clinch at least a share of the Ivy League regular season title.
Second half surge leads Princeton to 60–49 win over Harvard
On Friday night, the Crimson came into Jadwin looking to pull off an upset on the conference-leading Tigers. While the Crimson stormed out to a quick start in the first half, a strong second half led the Tigers to clinch a 60-49 win over Harvard.
Harvard guard Harmoni Turner opened the game with the first score, fading on a step-back three to put the Crimson up 3–0 with 9:03 remaining in the quarter. 30 seconds later, sophomore guard Madison St. Rose drove into the lane, spinning and laying it up and in for two.
St. Rose went for 12 points on 5-for-10 shooting on the night, marking her third consecutive game scoring in double digits.
Later, Harvard guard Lola Mullaney sank a layup with 8:18 remaining in the quarter. However, the Tigers were able to gather themselves quickly with first-year guard Skye Belker going coast-to-coast and handing a pass off to senior forward Chet Nweke for a neat finish, pulling Princeton within one at 5–4.
Since Feb. 2nd’s 79–59 win versus Yale, Nweke has averaged 14.3 points and 7.2 rebounds for the Tigers.
“She’s really elevated our play on both ends,” head coach Carla Berube told The Daily Princetonian. “She’s in the gym and she’s getting reps, so the fruits of her labor are definitely showing through.”
The first quarter slogged on, with the Tigers shooting just 5-for-15 from the field to start the game. Harvard jumped out to a 12–9 lead with less than 30 seconds left in the interval, but first-year guard Ashley Chea drilled a three-pointer from the corner to level the score at 12 right as time expired.
“Everybody wants to come in and beat Princeton because of the name we’ve made for ourselves,” Nweke said. “I think that’s why we need to work even harder to do better in these games and try to counter when [the opposing team] gives us a good run.”
Early in the second, a stutter-step into a layup from senior guard and captain Kaitlyn Chen gave Princeton a 15–12 edge with 8:59 remaining in the frame. Immediately after, a three-pointer from Harvard guard Lola Mullaney ignited an 8–0 Harvard run that returned the lead to Harvard, 22–15.
Points from St. Rose, Chen, and junior forward Parker Hill narrowed the gap to 25–21 with just under half of the quarter left to go.
With 37 seconds left in the second, Harvard forward Katie Krupa was left wide open for a three to make it 33–25, but St. Rose quickly answered with her own corner three-pointer to end the half at 33–28.
“I thought the first half was tough defensively,” Berube said. “[Turner] was making some really tough shots, and [Mullaney] gets any sort of daylight and that ball’s going up.”
The third opened with four Princeton turnovers within the first three minutes, but the Tigers turned it up following a foul committed against Chen at the 6:40 mark. Chen sank both from the charity stripe, putting Princeton within a score at 35–32.
Through some adjustments, the Tigers were able to turn the tide in the second half.
“I feel like Harvard was attacking us and getting what they wanted, and we honestly just let them,” St. Rose told the ‘Prince.’ “We took away their main sets and tried to make them run more offense, and that’s how we got a lot of stops.”
Soon after, Hill grabbed a huge offensive rebound and kicked it out to a wide open Chea, who knotted the score at 37 with 4:28 to go in the quarter. A carry on the next Crimson possession prompted Harvard head coach Carrie Moore to signal for a stoppage and regroup.
Coming out of the timeout, a huge Chen drive in the lane gave the Tigers their first lead in nearly 22 minutes at 39–37. Mitchell finished the frame with two layups of her own, and the Tigers found themselves entering the final quarter with a four-point edge, 43–39.
Nweke and Belker were the stars of the fourth. The two combined for 12 points in the final quarter, with Nweke grabbing the first score with a jumper in the key, keeping the Tigers ahead 45–39. Belker immediately followed, stopping on a dime, turning, and rising up for her own jumper to put Princeton up by eight, 47–39, with 6:39 left in the contest.
“[Belker] plays with a lot of confidence,” St. Rose said. “Whatever it takes, she’s going to keep shooting it, and I trust her with all my heart. I know that she’s going to make the big time shots when we need it.”
In the final minutes, it was smooth sailing for Princeton. Harvard went just 2-for-6 on field goals for the remainder of the matchup, and the Tigers sealed the win at 60–49.
Tigers cruise to win over Dartmouth, 68–42
The Tigers wasted no time getting started on Saturday, jumping out to an 8–0 lead powered by an early three-pointer from Skye Belker. However, behind two layups from forward Clare Meyer, Dartmouth found their footing heading into the first media timeout to bring the score to 10–4.
Following the break, the Tigers once again found their rhythm. Ashley Chea checked into the game and quickly made her defensive presence known, forcing two Dartmouth turnovers and collecting a rebound. This defensive success translated to points, as the Tigers piled on seven more in the remaining minutes to head to the break up 17–6.
Chea continued her hot play to open the second quarter, sinking a three to widen the lead to 20–6. However, the Big Green then settled in for their first prolonged stretch of competitive play, matching the Tigers over the next five minutes. Heading into the media timeout, Princeton was up 27–16.
Already, eight players had scored for Princeton, a sign of a balanced offense that continued throughout the game.
“Everybody is capable, and when you’re playing against a zone, you keep trying to find the next open player,” Berube said. “We have all capable scorers and everybody’s got the green light in their range, and it’s nice to have a lot of different options.”
After Chea’s first three-pointer, the Tigers only shot 1-for-7 from three, resulting in opportunities for the Big Green to chip away. In the closing minutes, first-year guard Fadima Tall powered the Tigers into halftime, with four points and a big offensive rebound to bring the score to 33–22 Tigers at the break.
With the balanced Princeton offense, nobody scored more than five points for Princeton in the first half, a total shared by Belker and Kaitlyn Chen.
“She’s very serious about her craft and Princeton basketball and being a great teammate,” Berube said of Belker. “[I’m] really proud of her freshman year and just staying pretty steady and consistent. Not every game she’s scoring ten points, but she’s guarding usually our opponent’s best player, and she’s just been really important for us.”
Quickly avenging the three-point dry spell of the second quarter, St. Rose set the tone with a three in the Tigers’ first possession of the half. From there, the Tigers’ 26th-ranked defense continued to do what it does best — forcing bad shots and turnovers. Improving from the lapse in the second, Princeton closed out the third strong, outscoring Dartmouth 20–6 in the quarter.
“[We] just picked up the defensive intensity and then really moved the ball offensively,’ Berube continued. “When you’re playing against a zone, you’re just trying to find those openings and those gaps, and we were hitting the high post and swinging it and getting Maddie [St. Rose] some good looks.”
In the fourth quarter, the Tigers’ bench continued to be a force. Fadima Tall added five points in the frame to bring her total to nine, accompanied by a team-leading seven rebounds in just eleven minutes of play. Tall’s nine points contributed to 27 total by first-years in this game.
Mitchell, one of three seniors on the team, looked towards the talented first-years as the team’s future while acknowledging that her four years at Princeton are coming to an end.
“You have to make the most of it, play with that much more excitement and remind the younger ones that they have a lot of years left, but me, Kaitlyn [Chen] and Chet [Nweke], this is going to be the end for us,” Mitchell said. “So it makes it a little more personal, but still a lot more fun.”
After Dartmouth forward Cate MacDonald made two free throws in the closing seconds, junior guard Amelia Osgood dribbled the ball out to close the game, sealing a 68–42 win for the Tigers. After last week’s loss at Columbia, Saturday’s win serves as an exclamation point on a strong weekend following Friday’s win against Harvard.
“Back-to-backs are challenging,” Berube added. “[We] were really focused on how we wanted to [take on] the challenge of playing Dartmouth, and how we needed to defend them, and what we wanted to work on offensively, because Dartmouth and Harvard are very different, but they came in ready to work this weekend. It was a great weekend.”
After what is sure to be a busy midterms week of practice, the Tigers stay home for senior day next weekend against Penn (15–11, 7–6) at 2 p.m.
“We’re nearing the end home stretch, so it’s time to take another step and gear up again,” Belker said.
Max Hines is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’
Yousif Mohamed is a senior Sports writer at the ‘Prince.’
Please send corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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