PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Columbia scored the game's first 15 points and cruised to its 10th straight victory, steamrolling Brown, 78-40, Saturday afternoon in Ivy League women's basketball action at the Pizzitola Sports Center.
The Lions (17-4, 8-0 Ivy) came out with the press and Brown (10-11, 4-4 Ivy) had no answer for it. The Bears turned it over on three of their first four possessions before head coach Monique LeBlanc called for time in an 8-0 hole. Columbia later forced three more turnovers to score three baskets in a span of just 24 seconds. The last bucket came from
Marija Avlijas to make it 15-0 less than four minutes into the contest.
"I think we approach every game the same way," senior
Cecelia Collins told Colleen Kelly in her
postgame interview. "Obviously [the Ivy League Tournament being at Brown] is in the back of our mind. Winning a championship here is the main goal but you've got to approach every Ivy League opponent the same way and prepare the same way."
Collins finished with 16 points, a game-high nine rebounds and tacked on five assists. Sophomore
Riley Weiss, who earned multiple national recognitions this past week, scored a game-high 20 on 9-of-17 shooting. She stuffed the stat sheet with four rebounds, three steals, two assists and two blocks. Senior
Kitty Henderson was also all over the stat sheet, going for seven points, six assists, a career-high six steals and four rebounds.
This victory makes Columbia 8-0 in Ivy League play for the first time in program history. It's also Columbia's 18th straight Ivy League win.
"We are just going to continue to get into practice and fine-tune some of the things that we need to work on," added Collins when asked what to expect out of Columbia down the stretch "I think we're a tough team, a tough team to beat, but we've got to keep getting better every single day."
Collins and Weiss combined for 19 of Columbia's 24 first-quarter points with the Lions holding a commanding 20-point lead. Weiss capped it off with a transition layup at the buzzer. Brown ultimately started 0-for-6 from the field with nine turnovers over the first 7:30. Columbia earned seven steals off those turnovers.
Columbia never led by less than 20 over the final 30 minutes of the game. They cooled off a bit in the second quarter but asserted their dominance with a 41-13 halftime lead. Weiss had 15 of her 20 points at the break and only played a combined nine minutes the rest of the game.
A crafty baseline out-of-bounds play by Avlijas, throwing the ball off her defender's back for an open layup, highlighted the third quarter. The lead ballooned to as many as 42 points, 69-27, in a fourth quarter that saw no Columbia starter play more than three minutes.
Brown was led by a team-high 15 points off the bench from Isabella Mauricio.
Columbia plays five of its final six regular season games at home. The Lions begin that stretch on Valentine's Day Friday, hosting Dartmouth (8-12, 2-5 Ivy) at 5 p.m.
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