Seven Sisters: Round One

November 22

In our home-opener this afternoon, hosting the prestigious Seven Sister’s Tournament and squaring off against Wellesley in first-round play, we again came out on the wrong side of a very close, hard-fought game. After overcoming a seven-point deficit with under a minute and a half left in regulation to force overtime, we were edged out by the Blue, 65-61.

Again, our ability to stay in the game and never give up was incredible. A strong defense at the end of regulation along with an Emily Haeuser jumper and a Kristyn Tempora 3-ball put us down two with about fifteen seconds left and the ball. This gave us just enough time to get a good shot up, after which I was able to track down the rebound and lay the ball in just before time expired. While our junior captain Emily Haeuser again did everything she could to keep us in the game, nailing numerous shots in the overtime session, we couldn’t match the offensive prowess of Wellesley in the final few minutes, as our opponent didn’t miss a single shot in the five-minute overtime.

Emily, or “House” as we refer to her most of the time (if you’ve seen her play, you understand why), played truly incredible in today’s game and did everything possible to get us the win. She scored 20 points while hauling in 10 rebounds to go along with an impressive 5 blocked shots and 5 steals. Her leadership was outstanding and she certainly showed not only her ability as a basketball player, but also her ability to lead an extremely young team and keep them together in very intense and sometimes stressful situations. This is my second year playing with House and her improvement as a leader both on and off the floor is definitely noteworthy.

While we obviously lost the five-minute overtime and hence the game, we all agreed that we didn’t lose the game in those last five minutes, but actually in the first five. We failed to execute in the first half and instead forced shots while having bad rebounding position. We were able to stay in the game with a couple of threes at the end of the half from freshman Brittany Parks, who netted a career-high 16 points. We seemed complacent and somewhat lethargic, the exact opposite of how we wanted to start the game off.

But when we came alive and executed, we could not be stopped. We were able to run our offensive sets much more effectively in the second half and in doing that, were able to get into the paint and get some open looks on the perimeter. Our defense looked pretty solid as well, as we managed to contain their running game for the most part and force 30 Wellesley turnovers. It was the boards that killed us in the end though, as the Blue outrebounded us 53-36.

While we did many positive things in this game and got a lot of “you guys look great this year” after the game, that isn’t enough for us; we’re too competitive. We’ve lost two heartbreakers in a week that could have gone either way, and we all knew that we could have got the win today had we played a better first half. A difference between a good team and a great team is not settling for being ‘in’ games. Great teams don’t want to just hang around and keep the score close, they want the win. We’ve come so close to those wins over this week, we can practically taste it. In tomorrow’s game against Mount Holyoke at 2 o’clock, we’re not just looking to come close. We need to come out strong and play the entire game as if it were the last five minutes. Most importantly, we need to come out on top, no matter what it takes.