For the Princeton women’s basketball team, there’s no place like home.
Playing in the friendly confines of Jadwin Gymnasium for the second game in a row, the Tigers swept aside the Vermont Catamounts with ease, 60-45, in a Saturday matinee.
Nine days ago, the Tigers returned home after a grueling road stretch to defeat the Rhode Island Rams, 66-54, in a game Princeton never trailed. On Saturday afternoon, the Tigers turned in a near carbon-copy performance, jumping out to an early lead against Vermont and never looking back.
The Orange and Black have not trailed at home in their last 95 minutes of playing time, dating back to a mid-November win over Villanova.
The Tigers pounced on the Catamounts from the opening tip. Princeton center Parker Hill established her dominance in the paint on the first possession of the game, finding a cutting Skye Belker for an easy layup to give the Tigers an early 2-0 lead.
After great defense by Princeton forced a shot-clock violation, Ashley Chea canned a three-pointer and before you could blink, the Tigers led 5-0. Chea led all scorers with 14 points on 5-for-12 shooting.
After Princeton got another stop, Chea fed an entry pass to Hill, who in turn found Fadima Tall cutting to the basket. Tall drew the foul and swished two free throws to put the Tigers up 7-0. Tall later added two more free throws and a trio of treys to finish with 13 points, three rebounds, two assists and a steal.
Vermont finally got on the scoreboard when Nikola Priede finished a layup on a well-designed out-of-bounds play. But Hill immediately responded by flipping in a jumper over Anna Olson. Hill then netted a layup when Chea found her streaking into the lane. In only 18 minutes of playing time, Hill contributed eight points, five rebounds, three assists, a block and a steal in another overall great performance by the 6-foot-4 senior center from Bethesda, Md.
With a little more than five minutes to play in the opening stanza, Belker stole the ball from Sarah Ericson and finished the play with a trey to give the Tigers their first double-digit lead, 14-2.
A series of touch fouls called on the Tigers helped Vermont stop the bleeding, but the Catamounts had no answer for Princeton’s inside/outside game. The Tigers led 19-10 at the end of the first quarter.
In the second quarter, the game see-sawed until Chea drove to the rim and finished with her left hand to put the Tigers up 28-17. After a missed Chea trey, Hill grabbed an offensive rebound and found Amelia Osgood for a straight-away three as the Tigers took a 33-20 lead into the intermission.
Osgood, a senior from Brentwood, Tenn., provided a nice boost off the bench for Carla Berube’s squad, finishing with a season-high six points on 2-for-2 shooting from beyond the arc.
The Tigers were led in the first half by Belker and Hill, who each tallied eight points. But the real story in the first 20 minutes was the overall play of Chea, who stuffed the stat sheet with seven points, five rebounds and four assists. The sophomore sensation from Montebello, Calif., was threatening to register a rare triple-double, and had this been a closer game, she might have achieved it.
Meanwhile, Princeton’s defense completely stifled Vermont, who converted on only seven of 24 field goal attempts in the first half for a woeful 29.4% shooting clip. The Tigers did considerably better, hitting on 13 of 30 shots, for 43.3% shooting.
In the third quarter, the Tigers put the game away immediately with two quick threes by Chea and Tall. Suddenly trailing by 19, Vermont coach Alisa Kresge called timeout only 57 seconds into the stanza. But it made no difference as Vermont could not find the range, missing on 10 of its first 12 shots in the third quarter.
A buzzer-beating, off-balance two-point shot by Catherine Gilwee gave the Catamounts a positive ending to an otherwise disastrous quarter. The Tigers led 49-28 heading into the final stanza.
The fourth quarter developed into something of a scrimmage as Berube played her bench for most of the remaining minutes of the game. Neither team executed well, scoring only one basket apiece in the first four and a half minutes of the frame.
The highlight of the quarter for Princeton was the play of Adaora Nwokeji, a 5-foot-8 senior from Houston who made several nice plays in the paint and tallied two free throws, her first points in two years.
In the end, the Tigers cruised to their second straight win, 60-43. After the game, Fadima Tall, named the Player the Game by the ESPN+ broadcast crew for the second game in a row, gave credit to her team’s defense.
“I thought our defense was amazing today,” Tall said. “We had each other’s back the entire game. I think that was one of the biggest things we had to work on from the season so far. And we knew the scout very well, so I think we did a good job taking away what they wanted to do, knowing their plays and knowing who could shoot the ball.”
Since a season-ending injury to Madison St. Rose on Nov. 16, Tall has emerged as one of Princeton’s most vocal leaders and important producers on the floor. The sophomore swing player has scored in double digits in six of her last eight games and leads the Tigers in rebounding this season.
The Tigers (8-4) will take time off to enjoy the holidays before going back into action against the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders at Jadwin Gym on Dec. 29 in a rematch of last year’s thriller, won by Princeton in Murfreesboro, 65-60.
Princeton will close out 2024 with a New Year’s Eve matchup at Jadwin against Le Moyne before commencing Ivy League play at home on Jan. 4 against Cornell.