The Dartmouth Sports Weekly 03/09/15

3.9. 15

MEN’S BASKETBALL BEATS YALE ON LAST SECOND LAY-IN

MEN’S HOCKEY DOWNS PRINCETON IN PLAYOFFS

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL FINISHES SEASON WITH 0.500 RECORD ELIZA MCDONOUGH, WEIJA TANG, ALISON GUH/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 2

BY THE NUMBERS

14 Runs in two shutout victories for softball on Saturday

8 Runs for baseball in first win and shutout of the season

17

Saves for James Kruger ’16 in shutout win over Princeton

1.9

Seconds left on the clock before Gabas Maldunas ’15 knocked down the game-winner against Yale

Men’s hockey blanks Princeton in ECAC playoffs B y gayne kalustian The Dartmouth Staff

If any lesson can be taken from the first weekend of postseason play for the men’s ice hockey team, it’s this: the team’s abilities are not in question, but if they want it, they’re going to have to work for it.

The team swept 12th seed Princeton University this weekend in the first round of the ECAC tournament. The fifth-seeded Big Green took the Tigers 3-2 on Friday before James Kruger ’16 picked up his third shutout of the season on 17 saves for the team’s 2-0 victory on Saturday night.

Despite pitting the Big Green against the lowest ranked team in the ECAC, the two games were incredibly close throughout much of the gameplay, catapulted forth by the Tigers’ “all-or-nothing” attitude which, when paired with its physical style of play, made them a deceptively tough opponent.

To skip the play-by-play, Princeton came to Thompson Arena on Friday night and played to the Big Green’s level, netting the first goal of the game and giving the home crowd a genuine scare. It was a onegoal game all night long, in favor of both teams at one point or another, though alternate captain Eric Neiley ’15 netted a late goal to put the Big Green over the top.

Head coach Bob Gaudet said he wasn’t surprised about how the game went because Princeton is known for its physicality. Similarly, Geoff Ferguson ’16 called it “one of the most physical games [they’ve] had all year.

“We definitely didn’t have our best effort tonight, and we’ll have to come out stronger tomorrow because they came out tonight and proved that they were a good team,” Ferguson said of the game on Friday.

The two teams played a tight game on Saturday — fun to watch, back and forth hockey — out of which emerged yet another victory for the Big Green. The score, however, remained tied or within just a single point for all but the final five seconds of the game. Kruger said that by Saturday night, the team

Katie McKay ’16 Editor-in-Chief

03. 09. 15

MONDAY, MARCH 9, 2015

Luke McCann ’16 Executive Editor

Henry Arndt ’16 Katie Jarrett ’16 Sports Editors

Natalie Cantave ’16 Photography Editor

Justin Levine ’16 Publisher

Jessica Avitable ’16 Executive Editor

knew it was going to be a closechecking, low-scoring game. “[Princeton was] kind of bottling us up with their trap, and we were doing the same with them just getting pucks out of our zone,” he said. “So, I think it was kind of going to be a low scoring battle from the start.”

As the men move forward, though, they will face much more skilled opponents than Princeton.

All of the top four teams in the ECAC were nationally ranked going into this weekend, including ECAC quarterfinals host Colgate University, who’s tied with Dartmouth for a fourth-place ranking in the ECAC and ranked at No. 18 in the nation.

The Big Green has yet to win a game against Colgate this season, but the two teams will face off in a three-game series this coming weekend in Hamilton, New York.

The two played to a 2-2 tie on Jan. 23, which kick-started a seven game no-loss streak for the Big Green. Just as Colgate served as the catalyst for a streak of good hockey for the Big Green, though, it would also see that streak come to an end. The men lost to Colgate 0-3 on Feb. 14, during which the team played one of its worst played, and arguably worst called, games of the year.

The Big Green is the only real contender in the ECAC who hasn’t broken into the NCAA’s top-20 this year, most likely counted down because the difficulty of pegging the team’s one true strength. The Big Green’s top point scorer, Neiley, is tied for 64th in the country. The men do not sit among the top penalty killers in the NCAA — 47th nationally — and they aren’t particularly potent on their power plays either, ranked 42nd in the country. The team’s overall defense is ranked 17th while its team offense is 25th, so these stats are slightly better, but still not “best in the nation” good. So what makes them a threat to teams which have spent all season at the top of the NCAA? The penalty kill, which Gaudet described as “fabulous” this weekend, killed all four penalties it faced.

Moreover, the team itself took only four penalties in each of the games it played against the Tigers this weekend. The team, who averages 4.3 penalties per game in conference play, played with incredible discipline against one of the roughest teams in the NCAA. Schierhorn himself took an unseen stab to the throat on Friday night next to the posts in the offensive zone that put him on all fours on the ice and caused the typically very reserved player to retaliate, but not enough to put his team at a disadvantage. Tommy Davis, the Tiger sophomore who threw his stick, was suspended by the ECAC for his conduct in Friday night’s game and was deemed ineligible to compete

against the Big Green the next day.

For reasons not quite apparent, Corey Kalk ’18 was at the receiving end of relentless contact on Saturday.

When he threw it back cleanly in a hard check, the athlete was thrown onto the posts, stomach first, but still skated away.

Even Brandon McNally ’15 lumbered away from an uncalled tripping penalty committed by Princeton on Saturday, likely in attempt to inflame the power forward to gain a man advantage in the closing minutes.

The referees, Schierhorn said, were letting the players play the game, which made the Big Green very careful not to be called on any retaliation penalties. This type of care and discipline, which keeps the Big Green playing their own game and not their opponent’s, could be crucial against Colgate this weekend, who got the better of Dartmouth’s temper in their last meeting.

Between the pipes, Kruger is ranked sixth in the country in goals against average — 14th in save percentage. He comes up with, Schierhorn said, “saves he really shouldn’t even be able to make,” while Gaudet praised his ability to snuff out scoring opportunities just outside the crease.

“When he gets beat, it’s typically a really good shot, but he makes those saves in traffic which are really hard and he makes them look pretty easy because he’s big and square to the puck,” Gaudet said. “The puck seems to stick to him.”

Offensively, Dartmouth puts its opponents in a conundrum. The team brings with it two lines, which, on many teams, could both considered first lines. Simply saying “having two lines that can score” is a gross oversimplification of the benefit these two lines bring with them.

The Robinson, Schierhorn and captain Tyler Sikura ’15 line and the Grant Opperman ’17, Neiley and McNally line leave teams with the pressure of deciding how to match their own lines. Should they decide to power protect their own top line against Dartmouth’s third and fourth lines — which overall might not even be effective considering Kalk’s +4 rating and the +3 rating of Carl Hesler ’18 — they find themselves struggling against two very offensively potent sets of forwards. If they put a shut-down line on the ice against Sikura and his linemates, do they have a second shut down line strong enough to take on Neiley and his line, which has been scoring most of the goals recently?

Should they put their top line against the — technically unlabeled — first line of Sikura, Robinson and Schierhorn, they have to be concerned about their own second line’s viability against Neiley, McNally and Opperman. If their second line is as

skilled as Dartmouth’s “second line,” are they also big and strong enough to win battles in the corners against the powerful likes of Neiley and McNally? And, if a team has all of that ­— lines which can play at different levels to different strengths — then the threat of the double line goes pretty much nowhere and hopefully good hockey ensues. Enter Colgate game one, a very strong defensive team with whom the Big Green actually tied for fourth place, broken on the head to head by a tie and loss for Dartmouth.

Colgate is another team with two effective lines, led by junior Kyle Baun and the Spink twins, Tyson and Tylor, and backed up by Mike Borkowski and Darcy Murphy. Additionally, the Raiders have the No. 6 defense in the country, allowing an average of just 2.12 goals per game.

Interestingly enough, from a point perspective, Colgate’s John Lidgett has been the Big Green’s biggest threat. Lidgett has picked up four points on three goals and an assist across the two match-ups — good for half of his season goals and just over a quarter of his season points.

The series should be, without a doubt, very close as both teams bring depth, Opperman said.

“I think we’re just going to have to execute,” he said. “I put emphasis on that because they’re pretty good defensively and they’re really good when they have the lead, so I’d say emphasis on the first period and emphasis on our chances because they’re pretty stingy.”

The jump from a rough-andtumble Princeton to the fine-tuned Raiders will be somewhat dramatic for the Big Green, who head to Hamilton in the middle of finals period. The signs of discipline the Big Green displayed against the Tigers are an indication that the series with Colgate will swing more in the direction of the 2-2 tie instead of the 0-3 loss.

In a more intangible sense, the facts that the Big Green was down early on Friday and still won and came back on Saturday after playing a sub-potential game on Friday to shut out the Tigers are yet a couple more in a long list of reasons to give Dartmouth the benefit of the doubt on its quest toward Lake Placid, New York, for the ECAC semifinals and finals on the following weekend.

Certainly, the men’s hockey team has been beaten. There is no way to fully know who will take the bid to semifinals, and there are points of the Big Green’s game which — if perfected — would make it a stronger contender.

But even if the team has been left out of the conversation about the best teams in the country, be sure that if it plays how it can and puts in the work that it must, there are always reasons to believe.

MONDAY, MARCH 9, 2015

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

Men’s basketball extends win streak to five

B y RAY LU

The Dartmouth Staff

Co-captain Gabas Maldunas ’15 and John Golden ’15, the only two seniors on the men’s basketball team, knew that this weekend series may very well have been their last. They sure made it count.

One day after storming back from a 24-point deficit to beat Brown University 75-69 on Friday, the Big Green upset Yale University 59-58 on a last-second layup by Maldunas with the inbounds assist from Golden.

The game-winner was drawn up after a cross-court outlet pass by Golden was swatted out-of-bounds by Yale (22-9, 11-3 Ivy) junior Justin Sears. In the ensuing play, Maldunas cut toward the basket, caught a lob pass from Golden and banked in the make while being fouled. “[Golden] made the pass to me, [Alex Mitola ’16] set a great screen and the rest is history,” Maldunas said.

Maldunas then intentionally missed the and-one free throw, leaving Yale time for only a desperation heave that fell well short of its target.

The Big Green (14-14, 7-7 Ivy) trailed by five with 35 seconds to play after Yale senior Javier Duren sank a pair of free throws. Miles Wright ’18 took matters into his own hands, rebounding a missed three by Connor Boehm ’16 before getting fouled and making two free throws of his own. Golden forced Duren into a turnover, and Wright came down the court to bury the game-tying triple.

“I think — with our team — that’s what we’ve done this season, persevere,” Wright said. “It’s one of our best traits.”

Duren was fouled with just two seconds remaining but missed his first free throw. That set up the madness of the final seconds that would eventually earn the place of number two on SportsCenter’s top-10 plays.

The Big Green trailed for the majority of the game, but the team managed to keep the deficit just within reach throughout the second half. Duren scored nine of his 11 points in the second half, including back-toback three pointers to open the period.

The spurt put Yale up by five, but Boehm and Wright responded with baskets to cut the deficit to one. Yale then capped a 6-0 run with a Sears lay-up to take their largest lead of the second half 42-35. No team would score more than five unanswered points the rest of the game, trading baskets before the wild finish.

The Big Green entered the second half trailing by a single point. After falling behind by 10 in the first half, the men went on a 22-11 run to bring the score to 29-30 at the break. Mitola capped the run with his only field goal of the game — a triple — which gave the Big Green its first lead of the game at 29-28.

Yale, the second-ranked three-point scoring team in the Ivy League, limited attempts from downtown in the first half, choosing to settle for two-point baskets and shooting a scorching 61.9 percent in the period. Freshman Makai Mason was a perfect 7-for-7 and had 15 of his game-high 19 points in the before the intermission.

Eleven Bulldog turnovers, though, kept the Big Green in the game. After Mason

SW 3

THE

RUNDOWN Men’s Basketball SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

HARVARD YALE PRINCETON DARTMOUTH COLUMBIA CORNELL PENN BROWN

11-3 11-3 8-5 7-7 5-9 5-9 4-9 4-10

21-7 22-9 15-14 14-14 13-15 13-17 9-18 13-18

Women’s Basketball

WEIJIA TANG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The men’s basketball team ended its regular season with home wins over Brown and Yale Universities.

buried a jumper to give Yale a 19-9 lead with 9:15 left in the first half, Yale turned the ball over three times and Dartmouth capitalized. Tommy Carpenter ’16, Maldunas and Kevin Crescenzi ’16 all converted lay-ups to bring the gap to just four points with a little more than six minutes remaining.

Carpenter led the team in scoring and matched his career-high with 13 points, set two weeks earlier in a victory against the University of Pennsylvania.

Wright had 12 points and five steals and Maldunas was the third Big Green player in double-digits with 10. Against Brown (13-18, 4-10 Ivy), Dartmouth trailed by 24 with 14 minutes to play before thundering back for one of the largest comebacks in Big Green history. After sophomore Steven Spieth gave the Bears their biggest lead of the night, Dartmouth outscored its opponents 49-19.

The Big Green trailed heavily in the first half due to abysmal 28.6 percent shooting.

The team struggled to make a shot, missing their first nine attempts from the field and turning the ball over three times before Gill hit a jumper nearly seven minutes into the game.

By that point, Brown had amassed a 14-0 lead. While the Big Green would outscore Brown for the rest of the first half, the early hole kept the Bears comfortably ahead, setting the stage for the scenery change in the second half.

After the game started up once again, the second half continue to see the Big Green slip behind its opponents. Boehm opened up the scoring with a layup, but Brown outscored the Big Green 15-2 to get to their 24-point cushion. Junior Cedric Kuakumensah was all over the court during the run, scoring six of his 11 points while tacking on four boards and a steal.

Behind 50-26, Dartmouth began their comeback with 11 unanswered points, the last five by Boehm alone. Brown remained unfazed. Senior Rafael Maia accounted for the next seven points by the Bears, matching any Big Green momentum.

The last of Maia’s jumpers pushed the

lead to 18 with a score of 39-57 before the Big Green responded with their second big run of the game.

“When you’re down 24 points, you’ve got to change some things,” Mitola said. “We really picked up the aggression on defense and started to pressure the ball a ton, deny some passes, and that really got us going.”

The 15-4 burst cut the deficit to single digits for the first time since the midway through the first half. Gill converted back-toback lay-ups as the Big Green gained ground.

The seven point difference appeared much more manageable than the nearly quadruple value it had been only minutes earlier, and it gave the men hope.

Brown sophomore Tavon Blackmon was fouled on a lay-up, converting the field goal attempt and the free throw to put Brown up double-digits once more 64-54 with 5:22 to play. His efforts, however, were not enough to stymie the Big Green’s momentum.

The men outscored Brown 19-5 for the rest of the game. A pair of Maldunas baskets and a three from Boehm whittled down the lead before Taylor Johnson ’18 came through with his only two baskets of the game, the second of which followed a fast break lay-up

by Boehm and gave the Big Green its first lead of the game 67-66. Blackmon hit a jumper to retake the lead, but Gill stepped up and buried a long ball. The Big Green sealed the win by hitting five of their final six free throws.

Gill led the team with a career-high 17 points on 75 percent shooting from the field.

Boehm had 16 points, his most since the first matchup against Harvard on Jan. 10, and also brought down 11 rebounds.

Golden added 12 points and three steals.

Mitola went 0-for-7 from the field but distributed the ball well and hit all six of his free throw attempts, stretching his league-leading free throw percentage to 85.3.

The weekend sweep also wrapped up a five-game win streak, and the men finish the season at or above 0.500 for the first time since the 1998-1999 season, making the team postseason eligible.

SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

PRINCETON PENN HARVARD YALE CORNELL DARTMOUTH BROWN COLUMBIA

13-0 11-2 7-7 7-7 6-8 5-9 4-10 2-12

29-0 20-7 14-14 13-15 15-13 14-14 10-18 8-20

Men’s Hockey SCHOOL

ECAC

OVERALL

QUINNIPIAC ST. LAWRENCE YALE COLGATE DARTMOUTH HARVARD CORNELL CLARKSON RPI UNION BROWN PRINCETON

16-3-3 14-7-1 12-6-4 11-7-4 12-8-2 11-8-3 9-9-4 8-11-3 8-12-2 8-13-1 5-14-3 2-18-2

21-9-4 18-13-3 17-7-5 19-11-4 15-10-4 15-11-3 11-12-6 11-18-5 10-23-3 16-16-2 8-18-3 4-21-3

Women’s Hockey SCHOOL

ECAC

OVERALL

CLARKSON HARVARD QUINNIPIAC CORNELL ST. LAWRENCE PRINCETON YALE DARTMOUTH RPI COLGATE UNION BROWN

16-4-2 16-4-2 15-5-2 14-6-2 13-5-4 13-8-1 12-10-0 9-11-2 5-16-1 4-16-2 1-16-5 2-19-1

24-9-3 23-5-3 26-7-3 18-10-3 19-12-5 15-14-2 15-15-1 13-15-2 7-23-4 7-25-2 4-22-8 5-23-1

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 4

MONDAY, MARCH 9, 2015

Women’s basketball splits road pair for .500 season record B y alexander agadjanian The Dartmouth Staff

The final weekend of games for the women’s basketball team was fitting for the season, representing the up-and-down nature of gameplay the team has seen in the last few months.

Having endured winning streaks of four and five games and losing skids of four and six, the Big Green dismantled Brown University 71-53 this past Friday only to receive a drubbing itself, 53-28 against Yale University 24 hours later. Nevertheless, the 2014-15 season still featured marked progress from one year ago. The team’s 14-14 overall record stands in stark contrast to last year’s 5-23 record, pointing to a program on the rise.

Momentum is often an incalculable and hackneyed term in basketball parlance, but there’s no question there was some carryover from the women’s success last weekend into Friday night against Brown. After stifling the previous week’s opponents to an average of 42.5 points per game and taking home two consecutive wins, the Big Green extended its overwhelming defensive display to start against the Bears.

After giving up a basket 33 seconds in, the Big Green immediately hunkered down on defense, holding Brown scoreless for nearly eight minutes after the initial basket. Over this stretch, Dartmouth disallowed any breathing space, forcing its foe —­­­­ which went 0-11 from the field during this period —­­­­ deep into the shot clock and into poor shot selection.

“Tia Dawson [’15] had a lot to do with that,” head coach Belle Koclanes said about her team’s strong defensive showing. “[She] makes such a difference out on the floor for us on both ends, and defensively to have her in the paint as our enforcer just helps our defense immensely.”

A similar story developed on the other end of the floor. Relying on its considerable size advantage and driving ability, the Big Green ferociously attacked the hoop, netting its first 10 — and 16 of its first 19 — points in the painted area, and eventually finishing the opening period with 26 points in the paint.

The cold streak for Brown also coincided with a 13-0 surge for the Big Green, which out-rebounded its opponent 9-4 during this span. After springing out to an early 15-3 edge, the Big Green would not relinquish its lead for the rest of the evening.

As she entered the final weekend of her career as a member of the Big Green, Dawson continued to show her ability to transform the game for the team. No other player had a bigger role in establishing the team’s supremacy in the post, on both offense and defense.

With 13 points on 6-7 shooting and eight rebounds, the senior center paved the way for Big Green success in the first half, contributing heavily

to a +7 team rebound differential at halftime. Dawson concluded the game with a double-double — her third in the last four outings — on 13 points and 10 rebounds.

Though Brown cut the score to 17-13 just under 11 minutes into the first period, the Big Green quickly issued an emphatic response. Over the course of the next five minutes, the Big Green embarked on an 11-2 run. Lakin Roland ’16, who drove aggressively toward the hoop all night, tallied six of these points and ended with eight for the half. By the halftime break, Dartmouth had gained a commanding 37-23 lead, fueled largely by a 56.7 field goal percentage compared to the Bears’ 26.9.

Dartmouth was able to grab one of its largest first half leads without the usual strong output from its top scorer in Fanni Szabo ’17, who only posted two points in the opening half. The guard settled in nicely in the next 20 minutes of action, though, finishing with an additional 12 points in the second half.

A 6-2 Brown run to start the second half whittled Dartmouth’s lead down to 10 within the opening two minutes, yet that would be the closest the Bears got to the Big Green for the remainder of the night. In just a four minute span that followed, Dartmouth generated a 13-2 spurt to go ahead 52-31, serving as the coup de grace in the game. Three-point plays — two three-pointers and a layup plus foul shot conversion, all by different players— were essential to this run and to creating scoreboard separation for the Big Green.

“I want all five players on the floor to be able to score at any point in time,” Koclanes said. “That’s what we’re working towards, that’s how our offensive is run. It’s a five out, it means that the ball is in everyone’s hands, making decisions and having opportunities. So I love multiple players scoring. You’re a harder team to defend that way.”

Vital to the 71-53 victory, offensive productivity ran evenly across the women’s stat sheet. Four different players reached double-digit scoring — none eclipsing Szabo’s gamehigh 14 — and an additional three teammates connected on at least two field goals each. Effective offensive execution produced a 55.6 field goal percentage for the game. The team displayed a clearly overwhelming presence in the post as well, reaching 44-24 points in the paint over Brown and a 35-28 rebound advantage by the end of the contest.

“It hasn’t happened for us in a while,” Milica Toskovic ’15 said about multiple players reaching doubledigits, herself included. “I think that just has to do with our confidence right now. We’re on a three-game winning streak, and it just [felt] like we had a lot of confidence coming in. People coming off the bench are hitting open

WEIJIA TANG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The women’s basketball team beat Brown University on Friday before ending its season with a loss to Yale University on Saturday.

shots. We’re really gelling well right now.”

Yet three games would be the extent of the women’s winning streak.

Relapsing back into a type of play reminiscent of its six-game losing skid earlier in the conference schedule, the Big Green had one of its worst outings in its last game of 2015, ending on a sour note with a 53-28 loss to Yale.

Prior to their complete collapse, the Big Green manufactured a strong start on Saturday night in New Haven, Connecticut. Playing in the final game of her career, Toskovic capitalized on her hot shooting touch early on to score the Big Green’s first seven points.

Even amid a defensive standstill that defined much of the first period of play, the Big Green rode its perfect shooting from beyond the arc — 3-3 on three point field goals for the half — to open a 13-8 lead at the 9:10 mark.

In the first four minutes of action, Yale out-rebounded Dartmouth 8-1, and seven of Yale’s rebounds came from offensive boards. By the end of the half, the Bulldogs possessed a +14 rebound differential, with its 17 on just the offensive end more than the Big Green’s total 14. The trend would come to illustrate Dartmouth’s struggle underneath the basket for the rest of the game.

“Yale just keeps coming at you,” Koclanes said. “They don’t stop, they’re one of the most aggressive teams that we play. They’re stronger than us, they play more physical. We had a hard time settling in against Yale’s pressure. We need to improve in so many areas, starting with getting stronger, individually, collectively and physically stronger.”

On the other end of the floor, the Big Green gradually descended into offensive disarray after gaining their

five-point edge. Sloppy ball handling and careless passes naturally created a serious turnover problem with 11 in the first 20 minutes and another 11 in the second half of play.

The miscues primarily came in short spurts, with four turnovers occurring in less than three minutes and another five coming later in just over a three minute span. Offensive rhythm became unattainable, and the Big Green fell victim to a seven-minute scoreless drought.

The decisive rebounding disparity compensated for Yale’s own disappointing shooting display, as the Big Green remained defensively stout and forced its opponent into poor shots. A multitude of second chances allowed the Bulldogs to overcome a 25.6 field goal percentage in the first half, slightly worse than Dartmouth’s 27.8, en route to a 22-15 lead over the Big Green at halftime. Yale freshman Tamara Simpson had 20 points by the end of the night and 16 in the first half.

The halftime break changed little for the Big Green, as its turnover issues persisted in the following half.

Six of the team’s first nine possessions of the new half ended due to a turnover. A dearth of scoring options only exacerbated the team’s offensive woes, as the Big Green missed six shots before Roland finally converted a three-pointer at the 13:15 mark for the team’s first points of the second half.

The triple somehow still had the Big Green within striking distance at 28-18, but the Bulldogs put a damper on Dartmouth’s hopes of a comeback, responding with a 15-2 run to secure an insurmountable 23-point lead at 43-20 with only six minutes left to play.

Bulldogs Nyasha Sarju and Whitney Wyckoff combined for 12 of these points for a collective total of 18 in

the second half, as Yale left its home gym triumphant by a tally of 53-28.

The Big Green finished the contest with a 22.2 field goal percentage, as no player entered double-digits in scoring. The women were also heavily out-rebounded 50-28 by Yale. Szabo, the team’s leading scorer, suffered a slow start for the second consecutive game, only this time the sophomore couldn’t recover, shooting 1-13 from the field and scoring for the first time with only 1:24 left in the game.

Despite the blowout defeat, the 2014-15 campaign remains a relative success for the team. In only the second year under the tutelage of Belle Koclanes, the Big Green reached its highest win total since a 2008-09 season that held an NCAA tournament berth. The final record at 14-14, 5-9 in the Ivy League marks a nine win improvement over one year ago.

“We’re definitely moving forward, I’m proud of this team’s effort this year,” Koclanes said. “We’re on solid ground now [getting to .500], we learned a lot of lessons along the way. The [returning players] have a ton of fire in their bellies.”

While moving on from the departure of a senior class is always difficult, the team will not incur too severe of a roster loss progressing to the next season. Replacing leadership is a concern, but the players who produced 82.6 percent of the scoring this year will return in 2015-16.

“It’s definitely going to be hard [to replace the seniors],” Roland said.

“Just from a maturity and confidence standpoint. Just having all three of them on the team and battling with all of us is going to be hard to replace, but that’s what happens with a team — you lose great players, then people step up and that’s fully what we expect to do.”