Big Second Half Pushes Vermont Past Dartmouth

Wednesday, November 25

Burlington, Vt.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Vermont

Big Second Half Pushes Vermont Past Dartmouth

11/25/2009 9:30:00 PM | Women's Basketball

By: Dartmouth

Boxscore

Burlington, Vt. - The Dartmouth women's basketball team held Vermont's big guns in check but the Catamounts used a strong second half effort to pull away from the Big Green tonight, 83-59.

Dartmouth (1-3) trailed the unbeaten Catamounts just 30-23 at halftime, but Vermont (4-0) shot 56 percent from the floor to pull away in the second. The Big Green contained Vermont's senior duo of Courtnay Pilypaitis and May Kotsopoulos to 12 points each, half their season averages.

Sophomore Sasha Dosenko (Kiev, Ukraine) neared a double-double with 11 rebounds and nine points in her first collegiate start, playing an efficient 27 minutes. Meghan McFee (Manchester, Conn.) poured in a game-high 16 points and grabbed three steals while Brittney Smith (Fort Worth, Texas) added 13 points, nine boards, three blocks and two steals.

The Big Green came out strong, getting some big stops in the first four minutes to take a 4-0 lead before the Cats got on the board at 16:32. Margaret and Brittney Smith put Dartmouth ahead 7-4 with free throws by 14:56 but Vermont stormed back and a Kotsopoulos three at 13:45 gave her team its first lead, up 9-7.

Brittney Smith hit one of two from the line on the next trip down the court before Kendra Seto jumpstarted a staggering 13-0 run to take a 22-8 lead at 9:18. The Big Green was down but far from out and Brittney Smith scored four quick points by the 5:00 mark to cut it to 24-12. Dosenko hit on back-to-back possessions around a bucket by Alisa Sheftic to make it 26-16.

The Big Green closed the half strong, with a 5-0 run in the final 1:27 including a big three by McFee and another nice move by Dosenko in the paint. McFee stole the Vermont inbounds and was bumped as she shot at the buzzer but there was no call on the play. Ultimately, Dartmouth outscored Vermont 13-8 in the last nine minutes of the first half to make it 30-23 at halftime.

Dartmouth started the second half with a big bucket by Brittney Smith, but Vermont responded with a 7-0 run to go up 37-25 at 17:52. The Big Green got three points in the next two minutes but the Cats took off on a backbreaking 14-0 run to go up 53-28 at 12:07.

The Big Green got back to back threes from McFee and Faziah Steen (Kalamazoo, Mich.) to stop the bleeding at get to 54-34 at 11:28. Kotsopoulos got going for Vermont, scoring seven points before a Michelle Meyer (Covington, Ohio) three at 8:32 made it 60-39.

Each time Dartmouth got a shot in the arm offensively, Vermont managed to draw a foul or extend a possession with offensive rebounding to stem any comeback, Five straight points by Tonya Young extended the lead to 68-41 with 7:15 to play before Steen and Dosenko cut the lead back to 23.

Vermont's Pilypaitis helped the lead balloon to 33 with just over four minutes to play before Dartmouth hit 4-of-4 from the line to slow the pace. McFee finished the game strong with four points in the last two minutes and the Big Green got some stops down the stretch to take it to the final, 83-59.

Dartmouth shot 42.3 percent in the second half and 38 percent overall, one of its stronger performances of the young season.

The Big Green is back in action this Sunday when it heads to Ohio to face Big East foe Cincinnati at 2 p.m.