IVY CHAMPIONS - Women's Basketball Wins 16th Title

Saturday, March 8

Providence, R.I.

7:00 pm

Dartmouth College

Brown

IVY CHAMPIONS - Women's Basketball Wins 16th Title

3/8/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball

By: Dartmouth

Boxscore

IVY CHAMPIONS - Dartmouth Women's Basketball Wins 16th Ivy Title

Providence, R.I. - It went down to the wire but the Dartmouth women's basketball team took a 51-48 victory at Brown to secure its 16th Ivy League Championship.

It was a fitting end for Dartmouth, who has surged to six-straight wins after two setbacks on the Columbia-Cornell road trip. The Big Green (14-14,11-3 Ivy) shares its title with Harvard (18-10, 11-3 Ivy) and Cornell (19-8, 11-3 Ivy) and will play a playoff this upcoming weekend to determine the Ivy League's NCAA Tournament representative.

Dartmouth had a dogfight on its hands with the last-place Bears (2-26, 1-13) but key free-throws down the stretch carried the Green to the title. Yale helped Dartmouth by defeating Harvard, 64-58, to knock the Crimson into the three-way tie.

Dartmouth rookie Brittney Smith (Fort Worth, Texas) neared a double-double with 12 points, nine rebounds while junior Koren Schram (Batesville, Ark.) scored all of her 11 points in the second half to propel Dartmouth to the win.

The teams traded buckets in the early goings, with the Big Green taking a modest 5-3 lead at 17:38 after a Kristen Craft (Marshalltown, Iowa) triple. The Bears then opened up a 13-9 lead at 10:16 before the Green tied it up with a 4-0 run to make it 13-13 at 8:20.

Brown outscored Dartmouth 9-7 in the next five minutes to take a 22-20 lead off an Annesley O'Neal threeball but the Big Green held a 7-2 advantage in the last 3:30 to take a 27-24 lead at the half.

The Bears knotted it up at 28-28 in the early goings of the second half before Schram, who played just seven minutes in the first half with foul trouble, scored eight-straight to give Dartmouth a 36-31 lead at 12:35. While Brown continued to fight, it would never pull closer than two for the rest of the game.

Dartmouth appeared to have the game in hand when it built a 45-38 lead at 2:36 after a pair of made free-throws by Smith, but O'Neal hit a three to pull Brown within four at 1:17. The Bears hung around late by hitting several big shots, but Dartmouth went 8-of-10 from the free-throw line in the last 2:36 to clinch the win. O'Neal had 16 points to pace Brown while Natalie Bonds posted 10 points, 13 boards.

The Big Green shot just 28.2 percent from the floor tonight, but made good on 25 of its 36 free-throw attempts to boost its offense.

With her outing, senior Sydney Scott (Houston, Texas) tied Dartmouth's career games played record with 113 (tied with Ashley Taylor '07).

The Big Green and its senior class of Craft and Scott has won three of the last four Ivy League titles and 16 in the last 29 years. It was Head Coach Chris Wielgus' 11th Ivy Title. In 2006, Dartmouth shared the title with Brown and Princeton in the Ivy League's first three-way tie. That year, Princeton won a coin flip to receive a bye and Dartmouth defeated Brown in the semifinal and Princeton in the championship to earn the NCAA auto-bid.

Playoff dates and details will be announced on Monday.