Women's Basketball Hangs Tough with Boston College in Loss

Friday, November 19

Burlington, Vt.

5:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Boston College

Women's Basketball Hangs Tough with Boston College in Loss

11/19/2010 8:21:00 PM | Women's Basketball

By: Dartmouth

BURLINGTON, Vt. - Every available player saw action and eight scored at least three points as the Dartmouth women's basketball team battled but fell to Boston College, who is receiving top-25 votes, 87-61.

Dartmouth had three players reach double-figures led by Brittney Smith's (Fort Worth, Texas) 13 points and nine rebounds. Sophomore Faziah Steen (Kalamazoo, Mich.) and freshman Nicola Zimmer (Chevy Chase, Md.) each scored 10 points.

The Big Green (0-3) had little answer for Boston College's (3-0) post tandem of 6-6 Carolyn Swords and 6-4 Stefanie Murphy. Swords used her size advantage for 26 points and had 12 rebounds. BC exploded for 52 points in the paint and held a 47-33 rebounding advantage.

Head coach Chris Wielgus substituted liberally in the final five minutes and just one Dartmouth starter played for more than 30 minutes. The Big Green led the game by as many as five points in the first half before a late 9-1 BC run gave the Eagles an insurmountable 13-point halftime lead.

Smith opened the game with back-to-back buckets to put Dartmouth ahead 4-0 but BC answered right back to tie it. A big three by Steen opened a 7-2 Dartmouth run capped by a Zimmer layup to give Dartmouth an 11-6 lead at 15:04. The Eagles stormed back, however, and went on a 12-0 run fueled by Katie Zenevitch off the bench to go up 18-11 at 10:02.

Dartmouth kept pace with Boston, however, and put together a 4-0 run to cut the lead to three, down 22-19 at 6:59. The Eagles got the advantage back to eight just three minutes later but Steen hit a huge three at 3:15 to make it a 29-24 game. The momentum was short-lived, however, as Boston College closed the half with a 9-1 run to take the 38-25 halftime lead.

Boston College picked up where it left off in the second half, inflating the lead to 21 -points, up 46-25 at 17:45. Dartmouth would not back down and kept the Eagles on their toes by answering buckets and stringing together runs. A 6-2 run midway through the half started by Cassie Cooper (Chelsea, Maine) drive capped by a Kylie Kufeld (Billings, Mont.) layup cut the lead to 54-40 at 12:33 and forcing a BC timeout. Overall it was part of a 15-8 scoring run for the Big Green, including Dartmouth's conventional three-point play of the season by Meghan McFee (Manchester, Conn.).

The teams kept pace with one another and a Zimmer jumper made the score 58-42 at 11:17, but that was the lowest the lead would be for the rest of the game. BC got the lead as high as 26 points with 5:41 to play, up 75-49, but a nice take by Sasha Dosenko (Kiev, Ukraine) followed by a Louise Vanden Bosch (Kettering, Ohio) three and a Zimmer free throw got the lead back down to 20, 75-55 with 3:43 to play. Boston College closed the game with a 12-6 run fueled by trips to the free throw line.

Dartmouth has a quick turnaround before taking on Marist on Saturday, Nov. 20 in the second game of the TD Bank Classic.