Princeton (9-8, 1-1 Ivy) 79 at Columbia (5-11, 1-2 Ivy) 64
Friday evening’s action began with an all-time performance from last year’s Ivy League Player of the Year, Princeton’s Bella Alarie. Alarie scored 45 points, besting the previous record of 43 points set by Dartmouth’s Gail Koziara in 1978, while making a conference record 20 field goals. As if that wasn’t enough, the 6′ 4″ forward captured 14 rebounds and added 4 blocks, setting a new Princeton career record of 160.
The defending champs came back from their three week hiatus to hold a five point lead, 38-33, at the half. A Riley Casey three pointer cut the Tigers’ lead to one, 46-45, at the 6:11 mark of the third quarter. Over the next three minutes, the Alarie would hit a jumper, layup and three pointer to lead the Orange & Black on a 11-2 run. A Sienna Durr old-fashioned three point play made it a 57-50 game with 2:50 left in the third, but that would be as close as the Lions would get.
For the Tigers, Carlie Littlefield scored 18 points with a career high 9 rebounds. The rest of the team totaled 16 points with the bench providing 3 points. The two stars shot 65 percent combined, while the rest of the squad managed only 13 percent. The entire team struggled from three, shooting 19 percent (3-16), but they made 75 percent (18-24) of their free throws. With Alarie leading the way, Princeton dominated the boards 47-31. The Lions shot only 37 percent from two, but were able to hit 40 percent (6-15) from three and 75 percent from the line (12-16). Casey and Janiya Clemmons led all Columbia scores with 22 and 16, respectively.
Yale (12-6, 2-1 Ivy) 65 vs Harvard (9-7, 2-1 Ivy) 62
The Ivy League’s leading scorer Roxy Barahman had a rough shooting night for the first 39:40, but she made two acrobatic shots in the last twenty seconds, including an incredible three pointer at the buzzer to lead Yale to a 65-62 victory over arch-rival Harvard.
After a back and forth contest where neither team could get any distance, the Bulldogs opened up a 7 point lead, 56-49, at the 3:50 mark of the fourth quarter. With the lead still seven with 100 seconds left, the Crimson hit four straight free throws to make it a 60-57 game. Following a missed three pointer by Yale’s Camilla Emsbo, the Crimson worked the shot clock down before Jeannie Boehm, standing to the right of the basket, found an open Madeline Raster at the left side of the arc for the open three to tie the game at 60 at the 37 second mark.
Standing near halfcourt, Barahman took the ball down to the right of the hoop. With Harvard’s Sydney Skinner right on top of her, Barahman forced an-off balance bank shot with 16 seconds left on the shot clock that somehow went in for the two point lead. On the next trip down, Raster hit a baseline jumper from the right side with 7 seconds left that looked to extend the game to overtime. Barahman then took the baseline inbounds and raced passed halfcourt. After escaping a steal attempt by Raster and a block from Katie Benzan, Barahman took a shot from the top of the Yale “Y” emblem near midcourt with 0.5 seconds to go that hit nothing but the bottom of the net.
Barahman ended the night with 14 points on 5-17 shooting. The other hero for the Bulldogs was reserve forward Alexandra Maund, who celebrated her birthday by scoring a game and career high 17 points on 8 for 11 shooting. Emsbo added 15 points and 7 rebounds for the winners. Harvard had four players in double digits with Raster and Jadyn Bush scoring 12 a piece, while Benzan and Boehm each added 11. Yale, which typically shoots better from two than three, flipped the switch with 46 percent from two and 31 percent from three. Harvard, which relies on strong two and three point shooting managed 51 percent from two, but only 22 percent (5-23) from three.
Dartmouth (8-8, 1-2 Ivy) 81 at Brown (9-10, 1-2 Ivy) 61
The Big Green used a 24-2 run over the game’s last seven minutes to defeat Brown, picking up its first conference win and an important road victory. The game, which was close throughout the first thirty minutes, was tied at 54 before Isalys Quinones was fouled by Dominique Leonidas at the top of the three point line with 1 second left in the quarter. After sinking all three free throws, Dartmouth held a 57-54 going into the final stanza.
A Justine Gaziano three from the left baseline and a put-back lauyup from Taylor Will gave the Brown a 59-57 lead with 7:30 left in regulation. The Green then scored the next 21 points, until Traiva Breedlove scored for the Bears at the one minute mark. Dartmouth missed its first three shots in the final frame, all from downtown, then hit 7 of 8 from two, 2 of 2 from three and all four free throws. The Bears, meanwhile, went 2-8 from two and 1-8 from three.
The Big Green had four players in double-figure scoring, Anne Luce with a career high 22, Paula Lenart added 14, Quinones scored 13 and Cy Lippold had 12. Lenart had 17 rebounds, Lippold had 7 assists, while Elle Louie had 6 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists. For the Bears, were without the services of injured starter Mary Butler, Shayna Mehta led the way with 17 points, and Will added 10 points (8 rebounds).
Penn (12-3, 2-0 Ivy) 59 at Cornell (7-7, 1-2 Ivy) 46
Eleah Parker, the 2017-2018 Ivy Rookie of the Year, scored a career high 26 points to go along with 12 rebounds for Penn, as the Quakers remained undefeated in Ivy play. With the score 17-16 at the 8:24 mark of the second quarter, the Red & Blue held the Big Red to only one basket over the next 10:19 to open up a 34-18 lead. Penn would extend their advantage to as many as 23 points in the third quarter before finishing the contest with a 13 point margin.
The game, the second half of a double-header with the men’s teams, allowed Penn to come away with a split on the night. In addition, the women’s victory was their sixth straight road win on the year and their fifth straight in their series with Cornell.
Joining Parker in double digits was Phoebe Sterba with 11 and Princess Aghayere with 10. In a game between two of the stronger defenses in the league, it was not surprising that baskets were hard to earn. The Quakers only managed 17 percent from three (5-30) and 50 percent from the line (2-4), but they succeeded on the inside with 53 percent from two. The Red were able to hit 80 percent from the line (12-15), but only made 34 percent from two and 18 percent from three. The one exception for Cornell was Laura Bagwell-Katalinich, who scored 20 points on 50 percent shooting, against her former team.