Dartmouth Women Come Up Short at Penn, 60-49

Saturday, March 5

Philadelphia, Pa.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Penn

3/5/2011 9:02:00 PM | Women's Basketball

By: Dartmouth

BOXSCORE

PHILADELPHIA - Penn used a 9-0 run to start the second half to pull away for good from the Dartmouth women's basketball team this evening at The Palestra.

Dartmouth (7-20, 3-10 Ivy) trailed just 29-28 at halftime but Penn's (11-16, 5-8 Ivy) early second half run proved the difference maker as the Quakers ultimately won by 11. After the first three minutes, the second half as evenly contested but the Big Green could never close the gap.

In her second to last collegiate game, senior Meghan McFee (Manchester, Conn.) continued her solid play of late with a team-high 13 points. Though she was held in check scoring, Faziah Steen (Kalamazoo, Mich.) tallied six assists, four steals and two blocks to go along with seven points. Penn's Alyssa Baron was the difference-maker with 19 points on 8-of-20 shooting, nearly double the attempts of the next player, to separate the Quakers.

Dartmouth junior Sasha Dosenko (Kiev, Ukraine) came up with 12 points and seven rebounds in 27 minutes off the bench.

Dartmouth shot 37.5 percent for the game to Penn's 36.1 percent. The Quakers held a 41-31 rebounding advantage.

The teams traded buckets in the early goings of the first half, with McCullough providing all of Penn's offense en route to a 6-6 tie at 17:06. Baron caught fire, however, and scored eight points in a two minute span to lead an 11-2 Penn run for a 17-8 Quaker lead at 13:39.

The Big Green came storming back, however, as McFee started a 10-2 run to slice the lead to just 19-18 with 9:27 on the clock after four straight points from Dosenko. The Quakers stopped the bleeding with a Jess Knapp short-range jumper as the shot-clock expired to go back up 21-18 with 8:55 on the clock, but Knapp would soon be sidelined with two fouls.

Dosenko kept up her solid play, making it seven straight points for Dartmouth with a conventional three-point play to tie the game, 21-21 at 6:49. The squads went back-and-forth and Steen hit one of two at the line to answer a Nicholson jumper and Dartmouth trailed 25-24 at 3:57 in the first. Both teams cooled off for the balance of the half, though Dartmouth got a shot in the arm when Steen stole the ball on the Penn baseline, went full court and found Ross under the basket for the layup and a 28-27 lead with 59 seconds to play. Ross was whistled for a questionable foul on the next possession, giving Jerin Smith two free throws that led to a 29-28 Penn halftime lead.

It took Penn less than three minutes to blow the game wide open in the second half, opening on a 9-0 run fueled by Knapp to go ahead 38-28 with just 17:18 on the clock. McFee hit a big three to snap the skid for Dartmouth, making it 38-31 at 17:01, but Baron responded with five straight for Penn to go back up 43-33 at 15:09.

Each time Dartmouth would start to cut into the lead the Quakers had an answer. Dosenko made it a 46-38 game with a nice look inside at 12:25, but Baron answered with a three to put Penn right back up by 10. A McCullogh three followed by a Nicholson layup to answer a long jumper by Cassie Cooper (Chelsea, Maine) gave Penn a 54-44 lead with 7:01 on the clock.

Both teams went stone cold until Nicholson hit a jumper at 3:50 followed by a triple from McFee, her third of the day, on the next possession to make it a 56-47 Penn lead with 3:29 on the clock. Dartmouth dug its own grave in the game's final minutes by giving up a host of offensive rebounds to the Quakers, who took their time on every possession to milk the clock.

The Big Green started fouling with 1:04 to play and Erin Power hit two to put Penn up 60-47 before Vanden Bosch scored off a baseline drive to make it 60-49 with 47 ticks to go, ultimately the final score.

Dartmouth has a very quick turnaround before hosting archrival Harvard on Tuesday night, March 8 at 7 p.m. at Leede Arena in the season finale.