Harvard Edges Dartmouth, 71-63, in Ivy League Opener

Saturday, January 14

Hanover, N.H.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

HARVARD

Harvard Edges Dartmouth, 71-63, in Ivy League Opener

1/14/2012 9:40:00 PM | Women's Basketball

By: Dartmouth

HANOVER, N.H - The Dartmouth women's basketball team, played a solid all-around game, but came up just short in its Ivy League opener falling to Harvard, 71-63, on Saturday night at Leede Arena.

Dartmouth (2-12, 0-1 Ivy) made thing interesting late and with a jumper from freshman center Tia Dawson (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) cut the game to a two-possession game with 32 seconds remaining, but Harvard's Brogan Berry went 4-of-4 in the final 30 seconds to give the Crimson the win.

Junior guard Faziah Steen (Detroit, Mich.) led all-scorers with 20 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the floor. Dawson posted her second career double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds while freshman guard Milica Toskovic (Santa Monica, Calif.) and senior forward Sasha Dosenko (Kiev, Ukraine) added 14 and 15 pints, respectively.

With the Big Green holding a 31-30 lead at halftime, Harvard (8-6, 1-0 Ivy) came out on fire in the second half, going on a 15-7 run to open the second stanza; opening up an 11-point lead, 46-38, lead at the 15:18 mark of the second half.

The Big Green remained calm and followed the lead of senior forward Dosenko. She nailed a triple at the 15:18 mark to cut Harvard's lead back to single-digits, where it would remain for the rest of the contest.

Dartmouth's all-around defensive effort helped them to chip away at the Crimson lead. For the game, Dartmouth forced the Harvard into 13 turnovers and outrebounded them by a 36-29 margin. With its relentless assault of the boards, Dartmouth trailed by five points several times in the last five minutes of the contest but just couldn't hit shots down the stretch to get the win.

Harvard started the game strong put the Big Green in a 5-0 hole in the first minute of the game and went on to open an 11-point, 20-9, lead at the 12:00 minute mark of the first stanza.

Toskovic, who scored all of her points from long range, sparked an 11-2 Dartmouth run, with a buzzer-beating triple, which got the Big Green right back in the game and tied the score at 22-22 at the 7:19 mark. The Big Green took its first lead of the game on foul shots from Dosenko before heading into the halftime break.

The Big Green bench was a key factor in tonight's contest, contributing an astounding 29 points while the Harvard bench only mustered six points. Dartmouth also utilized its post players well, scoring 20 points in the paint.

Dartmouth closes out the non-conference slate when it travels to Farmville, Va., to take on Longwood on Saturday, Jan. 21. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m. at Longwood's Willett Hall.

Big Green Sidelines
-Today's game is a matchup of several high school teammates. Dartmouth's Faziah Steen played with Harvard's Emma Golen at Detroit Country Day while Nicola Zimmer played with Harvard's Marissa Brock at St John's College High School.

-For the second consecutive game Dartmouth posted double-figure assists. Prior to the last two games, Dartmouth hadn't posted back-to-back contest with double figure assists.

-Steen hit the 20 point mark for the second time this season. She also had 32 in a win over Vermont. She is the lone Dartmouth player to score 20 or more points this season.