The women’s basketball team beat Bates 77-65 on last Friday and lost to Tufts 92-55 on Saturday in two away games, finishing the regular season with a 20-4 (7-3 NESCAC) record. Tomorrow the team will face Williams at home in a NESCAC quarterfinal matchup.
With the victory over Bates, Bowdoin secured the third seed in the NESCAC tournament.
“Bates has one of the best players in the league, Meredith Kelly,” said Head Coach Adrienne Shibles. “One of the challenges was trying to control her ability to get to the rim and shoot from the outside. We struggled a bit with that in the first half, but did a much better job in the second half.”
“She’s leading the league in scoring, averaging 21 points a game,” Shibles added. “She’s definitely someone that we needed to adjust on and focus on and we did a better job of that in the second half.”
Shannon Brady ’16 led the Polar Bears in points and rebounds, with 26 and 12 respectively. Captain Sara Binkhorst ’15 scored 13 points and made eight rebounds. Selena Lorrey ’16 racked up 12 points, making three 3-pointers.
“We came out with a good win against a big in-state rival,” said Binkhorst. “They’re a great shooting team and they made runs, but I was really proud of how we responded to them.”
“There was never a doubt that we were going to come out with a win, even when they made runs we responded really well as a team,” added Binkhorst.
Brady agreed with Binkhorst.
“[It] was a team effort,” she said. “All of our guards played really well. Sara Binkhorst always has great offensive games. Our seniors Anna [Prohi ’14] and KP [Prue ’14] are both really great defensive role models, and they really stepped up the defense in the Bates game.”
Bowdoin fell to Tufts in their final game of the regular season. With this win, Tufts completed an undefeated NESCAC season (10-0).
“The first approximately five minutes of the Tufts game was a great back-and-forth effort by both teams,” said Shibles. “Then they were shooting the ball exceptionally well from the outside, and I think we allowed that to affect our whole mental outlook of the game. It really impacted the way that we performed on both ends. I was most disappointed in our defensive effort against them.”
Brady scored 11 points, and Binkhorst put up 10. Marle Curle ’17 led the team in rebounds with six.
“It was quite the opposite [from the Bates game]. As a team we didn’t stay fully connected and we didn’t communicate a lot,” said Brady. “There was a lack of intensity in our team overall. We didn’t make the adjustments we needed to in order to take the game back into our own hands.”
Binkhorst shared Brady’s feeling of disappointment.
“While [the Tufts game] was extremely disappointing and we didn’t play to our potential…we have talked about it and watched film, and now we are focusing on learning from it, moving past it, and getting better because of it,” she said.
The NESCAC Tournament begins this weekend, and third-seeded Bowdoin will face sixth-seeded Williams (6-4 NESCAC) in the quarterfinals at 2 p.m. at Morrell Gymnasium tomorrow.
“They’re a phenomenal team. They beat us last time we saw them at Williams,” said Shibles. “They shoot the ball exceptionally well from the outside too, so they have that balance of inside-out, and so we’re going to need to bring our best defensive effort against them.”
The team is focusing its energy on preparing for Saturday’s big game.
“Just like after our tough loss against Amherst, we’re going to have a really intense, gritty week of practice so that we get used to kind of beating each other up…playing really tough, and having a winning mentality,” said Brady. “We have all the motivation we need, having a home playoff game against Williams after losing to them.”
Binkhorst agreed that mental preparation will be an important aspect of preparing for the game.
“It’s that mentality of just focusing one game at a time, and not making the game bigger than life itself, or overthinking the opponent,” she said.