The Dartmouth women\u2019s basketball team enjoyed a fairly successful start to their season, finishing 9-4 in their non-conference schedule before beginning Ivy League play. They won eight of their first ten games, their best record in their first 10 games since the 1989-90 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Big Green beat Boston University 52-50 in their opening matchup, led by 14-point performances from Alexandra Eldredge \u201927 and Cate MacDonald \u201927.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After a loss to the University of Albany, the Big Green bounced back with wins over Colby-Sawyer College and Siena College. The team dropped a close contest to Merrimack College, 59-57, in Leede Arena.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dartmouth then won five straight games. The Big Green recorded a 53-44 win over Central Connecticut State, before achieving a 53-45 victory against Bucknell in Leede Arena.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dartmouth\u2019s game against the New Jersey Institute of Technology was particularly notable. The Big Green were not favored to win, trailing 26-24 after the first two quarters. Sierra Carson \u201927 stepped up off the bench with 12 points and 4 rebounds to help the team to a 61-60 victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NJIT game was really important for all of us, because even though we were down in the beginning, Sierra Carson stepped up tremendously during that game and did exactly what we needed her to do,\u201d said co-captain Brooke Hollawell \u201926.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team then traveled to Iona College, triumphing 65-57 after a strong first-half performance in which they outscored the Gaels 33-23.<\/p>\n
Head coach Linda Cimino said that consecutive wins against NJIT and Iona were especially exciting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought those back to back wins were a big turning point for our program,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Senior co-captain Olivia Lawlor \u201926 said that the team\u2019s start was \u201chuge for confidence and morale.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivia Austin \u201928 said that it was nice to have a period during winter break where the team \u201ccan focus solely on basketball\u201d and that it \u201chas helped us build team camaraderie.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Big Green did drop two games to the University of New Hampshire and the University of Vermont, but they bounced back with a commanding 99-35 win against St. Joseph\u2019s University Brooklyn to end their non-conference slate. Every player on the Big Green\u2019s roster scored in their victory over St Joseph\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team finished with a 9-4 record in non-conference play, which marked an improvement from last year\u2019s 6-7 record at the same point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cimino was \u201cproud\u201d of the team\u2019s \u201ceffort\u201d in non-conference play.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou play non-conference to try to establish an identity and to see who can step up in key situations,\u201d she said. \u201cI thought that we were able to do that. I was proud of our effort in the nonconference.\u201d<\/p>\n
MacDonald leads the team with 10.8 points per game, while Zeynep Ozel \u201928 \u2014 9.4 PPG \u2014 Austin \u2014 9.3 PPG \u2014 Eldredge \u2014 at 8.3 PPG \u2014 and Nina Minicozzi \u201927 \u2014 at 8.3 PPG \u2014 \u00a0are also strong contributors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cimino emphasized the depth of the team\u2019s scorers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just [have] been playing really good team basketball,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who gets the credit and it doesn\u2019t matter who\u2019s scoring the most points,\u201d Lawlor added. \u201cIt\u2019s getting the win, and that\u2019s what\u2019s important to us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
MacDonald also leads the team in rebounds, averaging 7.3 per game, while Ozel is the team\u2019s leader in assists with over 4.4 per game. Ozel is also the team\u2019s leading 3-point scorer.<\/p>\n
The Big Green opened Ivy League play with a 72-47 loss to Harvard this past Saturday. Dartmouth shot just 34.5%, or 19 for 55, and were outrebounded 45-31.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cimino says that the team \u201cplay[s] in one of the strongest conferences in the country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that every game is going to be hard and challenging,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Big Green recorded a 2-12 record in Ivy League play, which was their best record since the 2021-22 season. Hollawell believes that the team is \u201cmore than capable of tripling that this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cimino is also optimistic about the direction of the team heading into the bulk of the Ivy League season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just happy with the effort that our players are putting in and their sense of purpose right now in terms of what we’re trying to do with this program,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team will look to bounce back in their next matchup against Cornell.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a very winnable game for us, and it\u2019ll really set the tone for us moving forward,\u201d Lawlor said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team will face the Cornell Big Red this Saturday at 1 p.m. in Leede Arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dartmouth women\u2019s basketball team enjoyed a fairly successful start to their season, finishing 9-4 in their non-conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-401548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}