Women's Basketball | Jumbos hold off Worcester State in for win No. 20 in regular-season finale

    The regular season came to a close for the women's basketball team Tuesday night as the Jumbos notched their 20th win of the year. Tufts (20-3, 7-2 NESCAC) beat Worcester State 58-47 on the road for its ninth victory in its last 10 games.
    The Jumbos, coming off a Senior Day victory over the Bates Bobcats Saturday, were seeking to maintain their momentum in anticipation of the NESCAC Tournament. But they weren't about to look past the Lancers.
    "There [are] a lot of things that we need to work on, and we got to work on some things last night," coach Carla Berube said. "It was also a game for us to get our 20th win of the season, which was a big goal of ours. This was probably the best 8-15 team we've ever seen, so it wasn't like we could have a letdown and think we could walk in there and beat them."
    The Jumbos got off to a quick 5-0 start, but Worcester State battled to keep it close and trailed just 9-7 with 12:32 remaining in the half. A 10-2 run by Tufts brought the lead to 19-9 with under five and a half minutes left in the frame. The Jumbos were unable to put the game away, however, as the Lancers responded in the following two minutes with a 10-0 run of their own to tie the game.
    Tufts answered right back, going on a 7-2 run over the final 3:22 of the first half to head to the locker room up 26-21. Junior forward Julia Baily scored Tufts' final seven points of the half and led the way with 15 in the in the period.
    "It is always a good feeling to go into the locker room with the momentum in your favor, so that was a plus," Baily said. "However, the vibe at halftime wasn't great. We knew that we [hadn't] played the best basketball in the first half. We weren't boxing out, getting after loose balls and playing solid transition defense. We were really hoping to make a statement in the second half."
    Both teams struggled from beyond the arc in the first 20 minutes, as the Jumbos were 1-for-7 from three-point range and just 37 percent from the floor while Worcester State went 1-for-5 from three-point range and was held to 26.1 percent shooting overall.
    But Tufts came out firing after the break, going on a 9-2 run aided by a pair of threes to open up a 37-23 lead. With 11:11 left in the contest, Tufts was on cruise control after building up the largest lead of the game, 46-29.
    Once again, the Lancers wouldn't fade away quietly, and they went on a 10-2 run culminating in a layup by freshman Kaleigh Charette, who led the team with 10 points, nine rebounds and four assists. The bucket cut the lead to nine with 7:44 left, but the nationally ranked No. 15 Jumbos never let the gap close to within single digits after that point, avoiding a late-game scare.
    "I think we all knew that we should have won by a lot more than we ended up winning by," Baily said.
    Baily ended the contest with a game-high 21 points, while sophomore guard Colleen Hart contributed 10 points to the effort and senior co-captain Kim Moynihan notched eight points and three assists.
    The Lancers improved on their poor shooting performance in the latter period, shooting 48 percent from the floor and hitting five of 12 shots from behind the three-point arc. Tufts, meanwhile, was consistent in each half, ending the game with 38 percent shooting from the field after shooting 39.4 percent in the second.
    Next up for Tufts will be the first round of the NESCAC Tournament, and the Jumbos will host sixth-seeded Wesleyan Saturday afternoon in Cousens Gym. As the Jumbos prepare for the conference matchup, they hope to build on some of their successes against Worcester State.
    "We didn't play spectacularly, but we didn't play poorly, either," Berube said. "They had some good minutes here and there, some really good basketball that we want to keep playing. They had … some wide-open shots that hopefully we'll hit in our own gym here on Saturday."
    "This week in practice we're really just going to try and focus on the important things that will help us this weekend against Wesleyan," Baily added. "We had spurts of great basketball during the Worcester State game -- we just need to try and maintain those spurts."