HANOVER, N.H. — It’s not easy being green, especially if you have to play against the Penn women’s basketball team on a hot streak.
Such was the case for Dartmouth on Friday night as the Quakers dominated the Big Green 66-37 for their fourth-straight win and moved one step closer to the last spot in the Ivy League Tournament.
“I was just really proud that they responded, especially with [the] understanding that we need to find wins to extend our seniors’ [seasons],” coach Mike McLaughlin said. “I want these kids to really enjoy this.”
The two teams could not be in more different positions than the first time they faced off. In January, Dartmouth’s 61-49 drubbing of Penn (15-10, 6-6 Ivy) at the Palestra put the Big Green (8-17, 2-10) atop the Ancient Eight while sending the Quakers into the basement. Since then, Dartmouth has not won a game while the Red and Blue have climbed their way into Ivy League Tournament contention.
“I think that just really emphasizes the point that any team in this league is good, and on any given day, anyone can beat anyone,” senior guard Stina Almqvist said. “So I think this was a really nice revenge for us, and with the momentum we have, I’m really excited for these last few games.”
Penn wasted no time lighting up the scoreboard as freshman forward Katie Collins drained a three-pointer to open up the offense’s efforts. Junior guard Simone Sawyer kept up the pressure, quickly following up with a layup and free throw. Senior guard Lizzy Groetsch rounded out the first three minutes of play with a layup. It took Dartmouth over three minutes to score its first points of the game.
Sloppy turnovers dug the Big Green into a bigger and bigger hole across the opening half of play. When the two teams went into the halftime break, Penn was up by 22 points.
Despite Dartmouth cleaning things up initially to get play back underway in the third quarter, a 9-0 run by Penn to put the team up by 27 points — including scores from Sawyer, Almqvist, and freshman guard Sarah Miller — slammed the door shut on any comeback by the Big Green. The Quakers entered the fourth and final period with a 25-point cushion, which it was able to see out.
Almqvist and Collins once again shone for the Red and Blue on the statistics sheet — both notching their sixth double-doubles of the season. Almqvist finished the night with a game-high 24 points along with 10 rebounds while Collins recorded 14 points and 10 rebounds.
“I’m so happy that [Collins] gets to see [Almqvist] three years further down the road, get to see what the preparation looks like, what it takes to try to come out here, what it’s gonna take tomorrow to recover, to come back again,” McLaughlin said. “And I also think [Collins] has made [Almqvist] better … they both really match each other.”
Heading into the weekend, Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton have already punched their tickets to Ivy Madness — leaving just one spot up for grabs. The two teams still in the hunt for the sole spot are Penn and Brown. After Brown’s loss to Columbia and Penn’s domination of Dartmouth on Friday, the Red and Blue are one step closer to playing basketball deep into March.
If Brown, which will play Saturday at 3 p.m., loses that game to Cornell, the Quakers will have secured their spot in postseason play before they even take the court against Harvard to finish the weekend. If Brown wins, the Quakers can clinch the spot by beating the Crimson.
“We just tried to focus on our game and not really think about that, but we were aware of what [the Brown loss] means for us,” Collins said. “We’re gonna try to win tomorrow to really clinch that spot.”
The quick turnaround will be tough for the Red and Blue. In the first matchup between the Quakers and the Crimson, Penn fell 73-44 while playing at the Palestra. This time around, the Quakers will be at a disadvantage after traveling first to Hanover and then to Cambridge, Mass. in three days while the Crimson will be significantly less travel-weary, having played at home on Friday.
Tip-off for the Quakers’ most important game of the year is slated for Saturday at 7 p.m.
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