Dartmouth Women Cruise Past Brown, 58-27

Friday, February 6

Providence, R.I.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Brown

Dartmouth Women's Hoops Tops Princeton in OT, 71-67, for Program's 500th Win

2/6/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball

By: Dartmouth

Boxscore

PROVIDENCE, R.I. ? Balanced offense and stifling defense was the right combination yet again for the Dartmouth women's basketball team in a 58-27 win at Brown this evening.

Sophomore guard Meghan McFee (Manchester, Conn.) recorded her first career double-double to lead the Big Green with 14 points, 10 rebounds and four assists.Darcy Rose (Fort Collins, Colo.) was also in double figures with 11 points. As a team, Dartmouth shot 45.7 percent from the floor while holding Brown to a woeful 18 percent.

The Big Green improves to 9-9 overall, 4-0 in the Ivy League while the Bears drop to 3-16, 0-4 Ivy.

Dartmouth got off to a solid start, with Rose scoring the first four points of the game to give the Big Green a 4-0 lead at 16:55. Brown did not get on the board until Karly Grace nailed a three at 16:09 and Dartmouth forced the Bears into below five seconds on the shot clock on five of the first six trips down the court.

Following Brown's first bucket, Dartmouth ran off an 8-0 run to take a 12-4 lead at 14:12. The Bears managed to pick up three points during a quick minute and a half span but the Big Green inflated its lead to 20-6 at 10:01 after four-straight points from Cassie Cooper (Chelsea, Maine).

After the Big Green seemed unable to miss in the early goings of the half it endured a five minute scoring drought but the defense held the Bears to just one made free-throw until McFee stopped the bleeding with a pull-up jumper at 5:19. Betsy Williams (Norwich, Vt.) stopped another nearly three-minute scoreless streak with a big three at 2:29. Sarah Delk answered with one of her own seconds later for the final bucket of the half and Dartmouth led, 25-10 at the break.

The Big Green cooled off to shoot 39 percent in the half while holding the Bears to a woeful 12 percent. Dartmouth controlled the boards, 21-17.

Dartmouth scored the first two points of the second before the Bears capitalized on some early Big Green miscues to get four-straight points and make it a 27-14 game at 16:56. Koren Schram (Batesville, Ark.) drained a big three for Dartmouth's first field goal of the half at 16:36. Rose then went on a 6-2 run of her own a gainst Brown to build the Dartmouth lead to 36-16 at 12:01.

Rose's output jumpstarted a deadly 14-0 Dartmouth run as the Big Green held the Bears scoreless for six minutes while building a 46-16 lead. Brown managed to answer with a quick 5-0 run of its own before McFee drained a three after breaking the press to make it 49-21 at 8:05.

The Big Green held the Bears scoreless for another long run though its own offense stagnated a bit during a 5-2 run capped by a Margaret Smith three-point play at 4:23. Lindsay Steele hit one of two free throws to end the run and Dartmouth led, 54-24 with less than four minutes to play.

An offensive putback by Natalie Bonds at 4:45 proved to be Brown's last field goal of the game as Dartmouth slowed down its offense and cruised to the 58-27 final. Both Williams and Cooper were key off the bench with eight and six points, respectively while Schram added eight points and four assists.

Dartmouth has yet another big test tomorrow when it heads to Yale for a 6 p.m. tip in New Haven. The Bulldogs (9-10, 2-3 Ivy) battled Harvard (11-7, 3-1 Ivy) to the bitter end tonight but the Crimson emerged with a 70-63 win.