The Middlebury women’s basketball team’s season ended this weekend with a 80-52 loss to the 16th-ranked Bowdoin College Polar Bears (22-3, 9-1) in the quarterfinals of the NESCAC tournament.
After having lost to the Polar Bears just two weeks prior to this matchup at Pepin Gymnasium on Sunday, Feb. 8 (53-43), this loss came as a repeat for the Panthers. Overall, the team finished placed seventh in the NESCAC, with an 11-14 record that includes a 3-7 slate in-conference. This marks a vast improvement upon the 2013-14 season, where Middlebury finished last in the NESCAC with a 7-17 overall, and 1-9 conference record.
The Panthers relied heavily on a five-woman starting core this season, and three among that group, Sarah Kaufman ’18, Sabrina Weeks ’18 and Elizabeth Knox ’17, will return next season along with the two most experienced bench players, Siobhan O’Sullivan ’17 and Krystina Reynolds ’17. All of this bodes well for the continued improvement of the program.
Head Coach KJ Krasco praised the two departing seniors who frequented the starting lineup, Rachel Crew ’15 and Alexis Coolidge ’15, along with Holly Lanchantin ’15 and Nora Kelly ’15 who also made substantial contributions to the team.
“Our seniors did a great job this season of leading a young group,” Krasco said. “We have some very talented and hard-working underclassmen who are determined to help lead our program to
future postseason games.”
On Saturday, Feb. 21, the Polar Bears outplayed the Panthers for most of the contest and dominated the game inside the paint, where Bowdoin outscored Middlebury 34-24 and outrebounded the visitors 50-29.
“In the first half this past weekend,” Crews reflected, “we gave up way too many offensive boards and allowed them easy looks with second, third and fourth chance opportunities.”
Middlebury held leads of 2-0, 4-2 and 6-4 earlier in the game, but a subsequent 8-0 run for Bowdoin resulted in a lead that the Polar Bears refused to relinquish. The Panthers kept the deficit to single digits for the majority of the first half, but over the last 5:02 of the first half, Bowdoin outscored Middlebury 13-3, including a buzzer-beating half court heave from Bowdoin’s Sydney Hancock. Going into the break the lead was 44-27 in favor of the Polar Bears.
Knox had a strong first half for Middlebury, netting 10 points on 4-9 shooting and snagging six rebounds. Coolidge tallied six points of her own on 3-4 shooting.
Crews opened the Panthers’ scoring in the second half by responding to a Bowdoin two-point jumper with a trey ball to shrink the deficit to 16, but throughout the second half Bowdoin slowly and steadily extended that 16-point lead to as many as 30 with 2:54 left to play. A couple of free throws late from Reynolds made the score 80-52 in favor of the Polar Bears,and ended the scoring.
Kaufman led the Panthers in the second half, dropping seven points on 3-6 shooting, while Knox grabbed four more boards.
On the game, Knox recorded a double-double with 14 points and 10 boards, while Kaufman was the only other Panther to score in double digits, with 11 of her own. Weeks tallied nine points and added four boards to the effort.
Departing Captain Crews feels positive about the program’s direction going forward.
“With a new coach coming in and a very young team,” Crews said, “[this season] was basically a fresh start for the program...One thing that really stood out this season was our improvement in communication both on and off the court. … With a new foundation for the program in place, Middlebury will be a major competitor in the NESCAC in the upcoming years.”
Coach Krasco is already looking ahead to work on fulfilling Crews’ prophecy.
“This year was brand new for everyone involved,” Krasco said. “Overall I am pleased with the progress we have made as a team and look forward to taking on new challenges and taking time to reflect on how we can become a better team over the next few months.”
