HANOVER, N.H. — Columbia women's basketball allowed its fewest points against a Div. I opponent in program history, outplaying Dartmouth on both sides of the ball on the way to a dominant, 80-37, victory Saturday evening at Leede Arena.
Columbia (21-4, 10-2 Ivy) remains tied for first place in the Ivy League standings with two games remaining in the regular season. The Ivy League Tournament field has been determined — Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and Penn — after Harvard clinched its spot on Saturday. Seeding amongst the four teams is still up for grabs.
Dartmouth (2-24, 0-12 Ivy) held a short-lived 8-2 lead to get things started Saturday in New Hampshire. Columbia answered with eight of the next 10 to tie things up by the first media timeout before ultimately pulling off a 24-3 run that lasted the final 7:13 of the first quarter and the opening 3:59 of the second. Over that span, the Big Green went over 10 minutes without a field goal, with Columbia's defense causing nine first-quarter turnovers. The Lions went on to turn Dartmouth over 30 times in the game and outscore them 36-5 in points off turnovers.
"We just stuck to the game plan. In a couple of the games recently, we have fallen apart a little bit and hit some adversity," Columbia head coach
Megan Griffith '07CC said. "I was really proud of our players for leaning into that and being disciplined 1-on-1 defensively … All five people buying in and that's what we saw today."
Eleven different Lions found the scoring column, led by 17 from
Abbey Hsu, 15 from
Kaitlyn Davis and 11 from
Hannah Pratt.
"We're going to play every game like it's the championship game and we had to come out here and prove our defense," said Pratt, who was 4-for-6 from the field and also added four assists. "We were a little stagnant in the third quarter so we had to pick it up … It's just a mindset. We have to go out there and attack every time."
A third quarter in which Dartmouth outscored the Lions 11-9 turned out to be an insignificant blip to Columbia's night. The Lions followed it up by outscoring the home team 27-5 in the fourth, going 10-for-17 from the field and 4-for-7 from deep over the final 10 minutes.
The Lions hit three consecutive threes on three straight possessions midway through the second quarter to take a commanding 35-14 lead. Hsu had two of them during that stretch and hit three in the quarter that saw Columbia outscore Dartmouth, 26-11.
"We have a very unselfish group and in certain moments it's about what we need from a player. Today, we needed a little bit from everybody," Griffith added. "Last night, we needed Abbey to step up for us. That's the beauty of this team. We share the ball really well and we love to play together."
Columbia will take the week to prepare for Brown (11-13, 4-8 Ivy), which knocked off Penn Saturday night in Providence. The Lions will visit the Pizzitola Sports Center next Saturday with tipoff scheduled for 4 p.m.
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