Women's basketball ends facing Amherst

Author: Brian Sirkia

The Middlebury women's basketball team saw their postseason hopes come to an end after splitting the weekend's games. The team hosted Trinity and Amherst on Friday, Feb. 13 and Saturday, Feb. 14, respectively. The squad wound up coming away with a 65-54 win against Trinity and a 71-49 loss against Amherst. Middlebury finishes their season with a record of 8-15 overall and 2-7 in NESCAC play.

The Friday night contest was a big win for the Middlebury women as they managed to keep their playoff hopes alive. Trinity started strong with a 10-2 lead, but the Panthers replied with a 10-2 run of their own, led by Elissa Goeke '12 and co-captain Emily Johnson '09, who each had five points during the spurt. The Panthers maintained this momentum and finished the half with a 31-21 lead.

The second half was characterized by Middlebury dominance, as the Panthers maintained the lead throughout the remainder of the game, not allowing Trinity to draw closer than nine points. They flexed their defensive muscle by holding Trinity to 27-percent shooting and dominating the defensive glass 35-22. They also had a solid night from the free throw line, going 7-9 in the final minutes to clinch the 11-point win.

Lauren Sanchez '11 led the way for the Panthers with a career-high 20 points, team-high nine rebounds, and by going 12-13 from the line. Johnson also had a strong performance with 18 points and Kaitlyn Fallon '10 tallied 11. Trinity's leaders were juniors Claire Arnstein with 14 points and Christine Card with 14 points and a game-high 13 rebounds.

The win for Middlebury gave them a chance at a playoff spot, but a victory against a tough Amherst team was necessary for the Panthers to make it into the postseason.

Despite being underdogs in Saturday's game, Middlebury came out strong and managed to stay within five points with 5:21 left in the first half. From there the Lord Jeffs showed that they deserved their impressive 23-1 overall record by taking a 35-18 lead at the half.

With the end of their season in sight, the Panthers battled throughout the rest of the game and scored 31 points to the Jeffs' 36 in the second half. Despite a strong showing in the second half, the 17-point halftime deficit proved to be too much for the Panthers to overcome.

"Amherst is a very good team," said Johnson. "They worked the ball inside out extremely well and made it very difficult for us defensively. I think we did a better job in the second half of being patient with our offense and we were more effective at getting the ball inside and getting to the foul line."

Lauren Sanchez had another great performance with 19 points to lead Middlebury. Co-captain Ashley Barron '09 finished her career with a total of 752 points. Emily Johnson also finished her career on Saturday, adding nine points in the game and ending her career with 977 points.

"The loss obviously put an end to our season," added Johnson, "but the exciting win the night before made my senior weekend very special."