HANOVER, N.H. – The Cornell University women's basketball team relied on strong defense to stay in the game, but suffered from an off shooting night as it fell to Dartmouth, 55-36, this evening at Leede Arena in Hanover, N.H.

 

Freshman Allison Abt led the Big Red with team-highs of 11 points and six rebounds, while Virginia McMunigal added seven points for Cornell.

 

Dartmouth (12-9, 7-0 Ivy) was led by Koren Schram with 14 points, while Brittney Smith fell one-point shy of a double-double with nine points and a team-high 14 rebounds. Meghan McFee also helped the Big Green to a 52-26 advantage on the boards with 11 rebounds on the evening.

 

Cornell (7-13, 3-6 Ivy) shot just 21.4 percent from the floor and a mere 17.6 percent from 3-point range, while Dartmouth connected on 34 percent overall and 35.7 percent from beyond the arc.

 

Defensively, the Big Red was solid, forcing 21 turnovers, while only turning the ball over 11 times on offense.    

 

The game featured a match-up between two of the top defenses in the Ivy League and it showed as both teams forced numerous turnovers in the opening minutes. A 5-2 Dartmouth lead five minutes into the game was stretched to an 8-2 advantage on a 3-pointer by Schram from the left corner. A pair of made free throws by Allie Fedorowicz cut the Dartmouth lead in half at the 13:01 mark, but Brittney Smith answered with a layup on the Big Green's next trip down the floor. Another trey by Schram made it a 13-4 game, but McMunigal ended Dartmouth's mini-run with a jumper from the right elbow and Shannan Scarselletta hit a layup to make it a 13-8 game with 8:20 to play in the first half.

 

The teams traded baskets for the next several minutes before a layup by McFee, followed by a pair of free throws by Margaret Smith gave Dartmouth a double-digit lead, 20-10, with just over five minutes remaining in the opening stanza. From there, the Big Green used a 7-2 scoring run to build a significant 27-12 lead, before taking a 31-17 lead into the intermission.

 

Cornell used an outstanding defensive effort in the opening minutes of the second half to hold Dartmouth without a field goal for over nine minutes of action. During that span, the Big Red also used a 10-4 scoring run to make it a 35-28 game at the 11:05 mark. During the run, Abt scored seven of the Big Red's points with two jumpers from the elbow and a trey from the right corner.

 

Louise Vanden Bosch connected on the Big Green's first field goal of the half with a layup off an offensive board at the 10:42 mark and a fastbreak layup by McFee off a Cornell miss extended the home team's lead back to double-digits, 39-28. Dartmouth made it nine straight points less than a minute later as a pair of made free throws by Brittney Smith and a deep 3-pointer by Schram made it a 44-28 game with 8:29 to play.

 

A jumper by McMunigal, followed by a trey from Sasha Truong ended the Big Green run, but Dartmouth scored the next 11 points to put the game out of reach, 55-33, with 2:32 to play. From there, the home team rolled to the 55-36 victory.  

 

The Big Red returns home for a pair of contests against Yale and Brown on Feb. 20 and 21, respectively. Both games are slated to tip off at 7 p.m. The game against the Bears will be part of the WBCA's Pink Zone initiative. Pink Zone, formerly known as Think Pink, is a global, unified effort for the WBCA nation of coaches to assist in raising breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses, in communities and beyond. Last season, over 500 fans came out to support the cause and watch Cornell defeat Dartmouth, 50-43.