The Hopkins women’s basketball team held Swarthmore without a bucket for the game’s first seven minutes and kept up a stellar defensive effort all day Saturday en route to a convincing 67-49 win.
Despite playing in a hostile environment on the road, the Lady Jays played with a lead throughout the entire game and stymied every run the Garnets managed to make.
Riding a two-game win streak in a critical stretch of the season, Hopkins emerged Saturday as the winner of three straight to push their Centennial Conference record to 11-4 and 14-7 overall. The Lady Jays can breathe a little easier now, as the Swarthmore win clinched the team a bid in the Centennial Conference tournament.
Wasting no time, the visiting Jays jumped off to a quick 9-0 lead until Elle Larsen scored a layup for Swarthmore. Sharpshooting junior guard Liz Tommasi responded with a triple that keyed a 9-3 Hopkins run to push the lead to 15 early on. The Garnets would not quit that easily though, and they traded baskets with Hopkins to make it a 20-9 game heading into halftime.
“I think there certainly is a sense of urgency when it comes to game time to establish the tone from the beginning [so] that we establish the pace of the game”, Katie Clark, junior point guard said. “We only had a limited number of games left going into Saturday, and we needed to put ourselves into the best possible position for postseason play.”
The Lady Jays certainly showed that sense of urgency in the first half, holding a team under 10 points in a half for the second time this year. Shooting just 4-33 for the half, Swarthmore was stifled by superb ball pressure and rotations by the Lady Jay defense.
“We have been working on our defense from the beginning of the year, and it is something we take pride in”, senior forward Haley Bush said. “We talked about what we needed to do before we started the game, and we were very successful in executing the game plan during the first half.”
Coming out of the break, Hopkins attacked the rim relentlessly, posting 12 points in the paint. The Lady Jays scored more points from free throws, of which they shot 24-31, in the second half, than they had in the entirety of the first half.
Nonetheless, Swarthmore kept the game within striking distance, buoyed by the conference’s leading scorer Larsen, who dropped 21 points in the second half alone and 26 for the game to go with 11 rebounds and five blocks in 37 minutes of playing time. The Lady Jays finally pushed the lead past 13 with a three-point play from senior center Ciara McCullagh.
From there, Hopkins did not take its foot off the accelerator, pushing the margin to as high as 20. The game ended with two free throws from Garnet Raina Williams to cut the deficit to 18, but the outcome was never in doubt for most of the second period.
As has been their signature all season long, the Lady Jays got several solid performances to lead a balanced, inside-out attack. Tommasi’s 16 points, including 11-12 from the charity stripe, led the way. She also chipped in three assists in 31 minutes.
Junior forward Beatriz Williams, who has filled up the stat sheet all year, contributed 11 points for Hopkins, seven rebounds, four blocks and two steals. The Jays were very happy with their performance on Saturday.
“Going into Saturday’s game, we all definitely had the mindset that we needed to take care of business and get a solid win, and we did just that,” Clark said. She was honored as the program’s first two-time Academic All-District player this week.
Clark continued a stellar season with 10 points and two steals, while Bush cleaned the glass with 10 boards for Hopkins.
The Jays’ 47-points outburst in the second half and 80 percent three-point field goal percentage bodes well for their matchup against Gettysburg Wednesday.
“We know that Wednesday’s game is going to be tough, but we are definitely prepared to face Gettysburg again,” Williams said. “I believe we are a different team than the first time we played them, and I don’t think they will be expecting it from us.”
Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Goldfarb Gymnasium.
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