Late First Half Run Dooms Dartmouth in Loss to Marist

Saturday, November 20

Burlington, Vt.

1:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Marist

Late First Half Run Dooms Dartmouth in Loss to Marist

11/20/2010 3:36:00 PM | Women's Basketball

By: Dartmouth

BURLINGTON, Vt. - After Dartmouth led the game with seven minutes to play in the first, the Marist women's basketball team went on a backbreaking run to seal the Big Green's fate in its fourth straight loss.

Marist (3-1) ended the first half with a 21-0 run and extended it to 30-0 in the second to build an insurmountable lead for a 77-46 win over Dartmouth (0-4). The game was played in Burlington, Vt. as part of the TD Bank Classic at Vermont.

The Big Green played a strong first half until the final six minutes of the period and could not recover from the Red Foxes' big run. Sasha Dosenko (Kiev, Ukraine) led Dartmouth with 12 points and six rebounds in 22 minutes off the bench while freshman point guard Nicola Zimmer (Chevy Chase, Md.) neared a double-double with 11 points and nine rebounds.

Marist had great balance in the scoring column with three players in double-figures led by Kate Oliver's 14 points.

Another inconsistent performance doomed the Big Green in the first half of the contest, putting Dartmouth in a 19-point halftime hole in a game of runs. Marist opened the game with a 7-0 run before Dartmouth answered back with a big 9-2 run of its own to tie the game at 9-9 at 14:55. Smith contributed six of the points in that stretch.

Marist stormed back with a 9-0 run to build an 18-9 lead at 12:47, capped by back-to-back threes from Kristine Best and Kelsey Beynnon. Once again showing resolve, Dartmouth broke out with a 13-2 run started by threes from Zimmerand Louise Vanden Bosch (Kettering, Ohio) around a jumper from Marist's Emily Stallings. A three-point play by Cassie Cooper (Chelsea, Maine) and four straight from Steen gave Dartmouth a 22-20 lead with 7:21 to play.

The Red Foxes used their considerable depth advantage from that point on, wearing down the Big Green's starters with a backbreaking 21-0 run over the final 7:10 of the half. Marist's post players were no match for the Green, but senior guards Erica Allenspach and Elise Caron fueled the run, combining for 12 of the points scored. Marist shot 45.2 percent for the half to take its 41-22 lead, also forcing 11 Dartmouth turnovers and scoring 16 points off of those.

Marist extended its streak to a staggering 30-0 run as the second half opened, going up 50-22 at 16:34. Zimmer finally broke the ice with the first of two threes around a Corielle Yarde layup, with her second triple making it 52-28 at 15:33. Zimmer's buckets jumpstarted a 17-6 run for Dartmouth, which cut the Vermont lead to 56-38 at 10:24 fueled by 10 consecutive points from Dosenko.

After four unanswered free throws by Dosenko, Marist turned it up again and rattled off a 9-0 run to go ahead 65-38 at 7:16 before a three-point play by Vanden Bosch stopped the bleeding at 5:53. That play started a modest 8-3 run for Dartmouth, making it a 22 point game with 4:03 to play. The Red Foxes used tough defense down the stretch, however, to force turnovers and extend the lead to the final 31-point advantage.

Dartmouth has a few days to regroup before hosting Vermont on Wednesday, Nov. 24 at 7 p.m. in its home opener.