Hot-Shooting Big Green Pummels Penn, 70-43

Friday, February 9

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 p.m.

Dartmouth College

Penn

Ashley Taylor Named Ivy Player of the Week

2/9/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball

By: Dartmouth

Boxscore

Hanover, N.H. - Dartmouth's offense and defense were firing on all cylinders as the Big Green returned home to Leede Arena tonight to pound Penn, 70-43. The Big Green improves to 10-10 (4-2 Ivy) while Penn drops to 8-11 (3-3 Ivy).

Dartmouth led the game wire-to-wire and had an advantage of as many as 31 points halfway through the second period. The Big Green allowed just 43 points by the Quakers, its lowest opponent scoring output of the season. On the offensive end, Dartmouth shot a blazing 55.1 percent from the field including a 56.3 percent effort (9-of-16) from behind the arc.

Senior Ashley Taylor (Cookeville, Tenn.) led all scorers with 22 points including five triples while sophmore Koren Schram (Batesville, Ark.) drained 14 with four from downtown.

While Dartmouth struck first, the game was close in the early goings as the Big Green held a slim 15-13 lead at 12:32 after a pair of free-throws by Lauren Pears. Dartmouth buckled down defensively and heated up on offense to go on a 19-8 run capped by back-to-back triples from Schram to go up 34-21 at the four minute mark. Taylor hit another three before Penn scored twice to take it to 37-25, Dartmouth at the half.

It took the Big Green a bit to get going in the second, not scoring a field goal until Sydney Scott (Houston, Texas) hit a jumper at the 17:27 mark. That started the offensive flow for Dartmouth, who opened on a 16-0 run holding Penn scoreless until Ashley Gray hit a jumper at 13:24 to make it 53-27, Big Green.

The Quakers would never come close again, with Dartmouth leading by as many as 31 points, 60-29, after a Taylor triple the 9:19 mark. Both teams substituted freely for the balance of the half and every available Dartmouth player saw action in the team effort to take the final 70-43 win.

Taylor matched her career-high with eight assists and shot 7-of-13 from the floor (5-of-7 from three) for her 22 points. Scott finished with 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting while junior Kristen Craft (Marshalltown, Iowa) tallied eight points, four assists and four rebounds. Rookie Margaret Smith (Fort Worth, Texas) did a nice job off the bench with a career-high nine rebounds and four points.

Defense led to offense for Dartmouth, who shut down Penn's duo of Monica Naltner and Joey Rhoads, who scored just four points each, far from their season average of 17.5 and 17.4 points per game, respectively. Taylor was charged with marking the speedy Rhoads while Naltner's game was hindered by Darcy Rose (Fort Collins, Colo.) and a host of double-teams in the post.

The Big Green will look to extend its winning-streak to four games when it hosts Princeton at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday.