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Clinging to a slim two-point lead over Columbia with just over two minutes left in the first half, Dartmouth’s trio of Aaryn Rai, Brendan Barry and Dame Adelekun took over and scored 43 of the Big Green’s final 47 points to lead the way to a 76-63 victory at Levien Gymnasium on a snowy Saturday in New York City.
PHILADELPHIA – Everyone at the Palestra knew what was at stake Saturday afternoon: the inside track on fourth place in the Ivies.
Down 12-2, starting power forward Michael Moshkovitz off the court with two quick fouls and a boisterous sellout Lavietes Pavilion crowd on top of them, things looked bleak for the Penn men as they made it to their bench for the first media timeout in Friday night’s nationally televised game at Harvard.
Fortunately, Steve Donahue settled his team and the Quakers bounced back for an important 78-74 road victory that has the Red & Blue at 5-2 (8-12 overall) halfway through the Ivy League schedule.
Tommy Amaker’s Crimson, meanwhile, left the court with their third loss in five league contests (10-7 overall).
It was the Abby Meyers and Julia Cunningham show in New Haven Friday night.
The Columbia women started slow but found fifth gear after halftime to race past Penn, 61-56, on Wednesday night in New York — breaking an 18-game losing streak against the Quakers that stretched back to 2011.
After a disappointing loss at Penn on Saturday set up by a subpar performance by Azar Swain, Yale got just what the doctor ordered Tuesday night: a visit to Payne Whitney Gym from Ivy bottom-dweller Columbia.
But Yale did not play down to the opposition.
Ninety-five years after Penn opened up the Palestra with a win over Yale, this edition of the Red & Blue sought another reset Saturday against the team pegged to win the Ivy title in the conference preseason media poll.
Both Tiger teams fared well against their Dartmouth opponents Saturday.
Yale staked its claim to second place in Ivy women’s basketball Saturday afternoon at home by beating Penn, 63-53.
After running out to a 24-point lead over the first 7:30 of the game, the Columbia women surprisingly found themselves in a battle with Cornell on Thursday night. In a typically intense physical battle between the Empire State rivals, the Lions used the offense of Kitty Henderson and the rebounding of Kaitlyn Davis to come away with a 57-46 victory at Levien Gymnasium.
With the win, the Light Blue are 3-0 in league play (12-0 overall) for the first time in program history and remain tied with Princeton for first place. For the Red, the defeat was their first of the year when holding an opponent to 60 points or less and they are now 1-3 in the conference (6-9 overall).