ITHACA, N.Y. – The Big Red connected on its first five shots of the contest to jump out to a 12-0 lead and never looked back as it defeated Dartmouth, 66-46, this evening in Newman Arena. The win improves Cornell to 14-7 overall and coupled with Yale's loss this evening at Penn, moves the Big Red into a tie with the Bulldogs for second place in the Ivy League with a conference record of 5-2.
 
Nia Marshall was outstanding, scoring 24 points in just 26 minutes on 8-of-12 shooting from the floor and an 8-of-9 performance from the foul line. Nicholle Aston connected on 6-of-9 from the field to tally 13 points and Kerri Moran also finished in double-figures with 11 points. Both Marshall and Aston collected a team-high seven rebounds, while Sarah Poland grabbed a career-high six boards, as Cornell outrebounded the Big Green, 43-34.
 
The Big Red assisted on 18-of-23 baskets with Moran, Megan LeDuc and Christine Kline handing out four helpers apiece.
 
Cornell shot a blistering 61.9 percent in the first half to build a 39-24 lead at the intermission.
 
After getting out to the quick 12-0 advantage at the 17:21 mark, Dartmouth made it a single-digit lead (13-4 and 16-8) twice over the next three minutes but a jumper by Marshall put Cornell up 18-8 and the home team led by double-digits the rest of the way.
 
While the Big Red cooled in the second half, shooting just 34.5 percent over the final 20 minutes, the defense stepped up and held the visitors to just 18.5 percent from the floor and eventually pushed its lead to a game-high 22 points (61-39) on a jumper by Moran with just over five minutes to play.
 
Head Coach Dayna Smith subbed liberally over the final five minutes with every healthy player getting into the contest.
 
For the game, the Big Red connected on 46 percent of its shots overall (23-50) and 25 percent from 3-point range (1-4).  
 
Dartmouth (10-11, 1-6), which shot just 25.8 percent for the game (16-62) and 17.4 percent from 3-point range (4-23), was led by Fanni Szabo and Katie Vereika with 11 and 10 points, respectively, while Tia Dawson came in off the bench and pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds.  
 
The Big Red will enter into a pivotal game with Harvard tomorrow, Saturday, Feb. 14 at 4 p.m. The game was originally scheduled for 6 p.m., but has been moved due to a possible blizzard in store for the metro Boston area.