It is not everyday that you see a 10-loss team in the NCAA tournament, but Tufts women’s basketball squeezed their way in with an at-large bid with a 15–10 overall record. After falling to Trinity College in double overtime in the NESCAC tournament, Tufts had almost two weeks to prepare for their share of March madness.
On Friday, the Tufts Jumbos travelled to Gettysburg, Pa. to face the Western New England Golden Bears in the first round. The Golden Bears came into the tournament with a 24–3 record, after narrowly losing to Endicott College in the Conference of New England championship game.
Tufts’ time off seemed to be well spent as they opened up the game with intensity. Winning the first possession, first-year guard Monet Witherspoon was quick to score the first 2 points, six seconds into the game.
The Jumbos came into the game with a plan. “Our mindset going into the game, like each game, was to play tough, intense defense. We wanted to deny hard so that we could disrupt their motion offense,” coach Jill Pace wrote in an email to the Daily.
Doing just that, the Jumbos displayed their usual formidable defense, preventing the Golden Bears from getting a shot off for the first two minutes of the game.
“Our team thrives on the energy we generate by working hard, and working together on the defensive side of the ball,” sophomore guard Stella Galanes wrote in an email to the Daily.
The Jumbos used that energy to establish an early lead which the Golden Bears struggled to catch up to in the first quarter. Tufts set the tone for a fast pace game, pushing the ball up the court on fast breaks and scoring 8 points off turnovers in the first quarter.
Toward the end of the first frame, the Golden Bears began to settle into their strong defense, foreshadowing the defensive battle of the game ahead. Nevertheless, the first quarter saw Tufts with a 20–14 lead.
However, the second quarter saw a drastic shift in the Jumbos’ play. Western New England’s defense stifled Tufts to a mere 5 points throughout the quarter. Tufts field goal percentage was an unfortunate 6.25. Meanwhile, the Golden Bears’ offense began to chip away at the lead.
Just a minute and 37 seconds into the second quarter, the Golden Bears had brought the score to within one point. However, senior guard Sofia Gonzalez extended Tufts’ lead with a solid 3-pointer. Still, it was not long until Western New England saw their first lead of the game around the quarter’s halfway mark. They achieved and maintained a 10 point lead until two free throws from graduate student guard Callie O’Brien brought it down to 8 just before halftime.
The unlucky second quarter set the Jumbos back for the rest of the game, as the half finished at 33–25.
The beginning of the third quarter was a showcase of both teams’ incredible defenses, as the first three minutes and 14 seconds were scoreless. Tufts began to utilize a full court press. While the Jumbos had 20 points in the paint in the first half of the game, the Golden Bears started to force them to shoot from the outside in the second half.
Despite Tufts outscoring Western New England in the third frame 13–10, they were unable to get more than 3 points away from the Golden Bears’ lead.
The fourth quarter saw another low shooting percentage of 15.79% for Tufts. The shots just did not seem to fall in the Jumbos’ favor. The Jumbos did manage to make an impressive 85.0% from the charity stripe by the end of the game. They capitalized on all of their trips to the line in the first three quarters, shooting 100% in each of them. But this did not seem to make up for the 12.5% of 3-pointers and overall 25.8% of field goals made.
“It was a hard fought battle — our shot selection was much better in the second half and unfortunately those shots didn’t fall,” wrote Pace.
Although Tufts fought relentlessly until the final buzzer, the game ended at a 61–52 decision in Western New England’s favor.
Once the Golden Bears saw their first lead in the second quarter, they would not give it up. Western New England was heavily assisted by forward Caitlyn Hunt coming off the bench to score a game high of 14 points and contributing seven rebounds and two assists. Forward Nora Young added 13 points, a game-high 10 rebounds and 3 blocks.
For the Jumbos, Gonzalez had a team high of 13 points, along with 6 rebounds and two steals. Witherspoon had 9 points, seven rebounds and three steals. Galanes also added 9 points. Senior forward Caitlyn O’Boyle contributed 2 points, seven rebounds and four steals.
The next day, Western New England was defeated by host Gettysburg College, who will now go on to face Randolph-Macon College.
This Jumbo team has seen a lot of good basketball and displayed much resilience throughout the season. “Looking back on the season, I think we were a team that showed a lot of heart. We faced tough losses, celebrated big wins, and above all pushed each other to improve every day, which is what we set out to do at the beginning of the season,” Galanes reflected.
Witherspoon was named NESCAC Rookie of the Year. Witherspoon averaged 11.6 points a game, second most on the team and 15th in the conference. She also was 13th in the conference with 35 steals.
Gonzalez was named All-NESCAC First Team. She was the team’s lead scorer, averaging 13.4 points per game and second on the team in terms of rebounds with 6.0. Additionally, Gonzalez’s 46 3-pointers put her at fifth in the league, and her 56 steals put her in second place in the NESCAC.
