Women's basketball cruises past Middlebury in NESCAC quarterfinals

The No. 6 Tufts women's basketball team, seeking its third NESCAC championship in a row, kicked off its 2016 conference tournament run with a resounding 68-36 win over Middlebury College Saturday afternoon.All 13 eligible players on the first-seeded Jumbos' roster saw time on the court as they shut down the eighth-seeded Panthers. Cousens Gymnasium will host the semifinals and championship game next weekend, when Tufts hopes to cut down the nets once again.

Middlebury started off the game effectively on defense. By the end of the first quarter, Tufts had only secured a six-point lead as the Jumbos struggled to find a rhythm for the first 10 minutes of play. While it didn't take long for the Jumbos to settle into a double-digit lead, they did not stop scoring for more than two and a half quarters of play. The Panthers started out with a box-and-one zone defense intended to lock down junior center Michela North.With Tufts' leading scorer singled out and heavily guarded, the Jumbos were having trouble getting the open, easy buckets they usually find.

"Any time a team puts a box on one or doubles one person, it's going to leave one person wide open," coach Carla Berube said. "And I think it might've frazzled us a little bit in the first quarter, and I think we just needed to settle down, run our stuff and execute what we've been working on and don't let other teams take us out of what we want to do. [Michela's] our All-American, so I'm not surprised that [it frazzled us]."

It's quite possible that the Jumbos encounter more creative defensive schemes as teams try to disrupt them further into the postseason. The most important focus, then, is that they keep their heads, adjust and knock down the shots that opponents leave them open for, sophomore Melissa Baptista said.

"It's definitely a defense we're not really accustomed to," Baptista said. "We always practice either man-on-man or a 2-3 zone, but in timeouts or in between quarters our coach just instructed us what type of plays we should be doing and who we should be looking for and what gaps we should be looking into, and just being confident because their defense definitely sagged a bit. For that reason, it was important that we took all the shots that were open and hopefully they fell in."

Baptista was one of Tufts' many offensive threats that the team could look to in lieu of North. She finished with a game-high 20 points, scoring 12 in the third quarter alone.

The defensive strategy could only take Middlebury so far as Tufts' defense gave way to offensive outbursts; points in transition and moving the ball before the Panthers could settle into defense were key. The Jumbos outscored the Panthers 32-2 in points off turnovers and Middlebury gave the ball away 28 times compared to just seven for Tufts.

In the second quarter, shots from senior Maura Folliard, who stepped up off the bench for Tufts, and from sophomore Lauren Dillon, fell in back-to-back to put their team up by 10. Dillon scored seven in the first half and finished with 10 points overall. After halftime, the Jumbos stretched a 12-point advantage into a 32-point lead by the end of the third quarter. Baptista poured in 12 points of her own in the third period. The fourth quarter would look just about identical to the third, as the Jumbos pushed the lead to 37 points before closing the game with a 32-point win.

Other players to join in on the scoring parade included junior Katy Hicks, who finished with five, and first-year Jacqueline Knapp, whose commanding play at point guard in the final half earned her five points as well. North contributed six points, three rebounds and three blocks, while Folliard ended the game with nine points and six rebounds. Ten different Jumbos scored over the course of the game.

"People stepped up," Berube said. "Melissa [Baptista], and I thought that Maura [Folliard] made some big shots as well, and I thought Lauren [Dillon] and [Knapp] ran our offense well and ran our team well. So, that's a big win."

On the other side of the ball, Middlebury was led by 10 points from sophomore Sarah Kaufman and eight points and 11 rebounds from classmate Eileen Daley.

With such a strong showing all the way down the bench from the Jumbos in the first game of the conference tournament, the team has now gained invaluable exposure and understanding going forward.

"I think it's very important, for one, that everyone had some time. It all comes with experience and confidence," Baptista said. "It was great to see that everyone can contribute because, from the bench to the starters, everyone has an important role in all that we do and all of the wins that we get. Having a game like that, beginning in the first-round game, it was awesome to start off on a good note and continue this streak of wins, and hopefully we can win the championship."

The Jumbos are experienced and positive as they head into yet another playoff game at home, a situation that puts them in a very good position to advance to the NESCAC championship.

"I think the team morale is great. It has been all year," Berube said. "Everybody is excited for each other and whoever's in the game, the bench energy is high and, you know, it's their job to come in and make a spark when they're in there, and I think they did that today. It's nice for younger players to get some experience in there in big games. This is a NESCAC quarterfinal game, and for them to get some playing time and some experience will only help us out in the future."

Tufts will welcome Colby College, the tournament's No. 5 seed, to Medford next Saturday for the semifinals. The Jumbos beat the Mules 54-45 on Jan. 9 at Colby during the NESCAC regular season. If they advance, Tufts will play in the championship game on Sunday.