With all ten NESCAC schools in action on Saturday, the day belonged to a pair of teams that are starting to pull away from some of their division rivals. Both Bowdoin and Colby improved their NESCAC record to 4-0 and remained tied for first.
The premier game of the day took place in Brunswick, Maine, where the Bowdoin Polar Bears hosted the always-dangerous Williams Purple Cows, which entered the game at 2-1 in the division but just 9-7 overall.
It looked like the Purple Cows were out to make a statement, as they jumped to a 12-point lead in the first half. After a hot-shooting first half, Williams took a 38-30 lead into the locker room. Bowdoin shot only 29 percent from the field.
In the second half, after Williams increased its lead to ten, Bowdoin scored the next 12 points to take a 42-40 lead with 14:48 remaining. But the see-saw battle continued, with the Purple Cows mustering a 7-0 run of their own, giving them a five-point edge less than three minutes later. But at that point, the Polar Bears put together the spurt that finally decided the game, a 14-2 run, which left the score at 56-49. From that point on, Bowdoin was able to hold on for a big 71-65 victory.
The Polar Bears were carried by an imposing inside game, dominating the glass by a margin of 50-33 (including 30 to 14 in the second half) to make up for a lower shooting percentage than Williams.
The NESCAC's other undefeated team, Colby, put its 3-0 NESCAC record on the line against Middlebury. For a while, the game had the feel of an upset, with Middlebury's Kristin Hanley scoring 18 points in the first half to give the Panthers a 30-27 lead.
But the White Mules bounced back in the second half, outscoring Middlebury 44-33 and picking up a 71-63 home win. While Colby won the game, Hanley's individual performance turned heads as she scored 31 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to single-handedly keep her team in the game.
Bates' victory over Trinity followed a similar pattern, with the Bobcats pulling away in the second half for an 88-72 triumph. A precarious 35-33 lead against a bad Trinity team, which is now 0-4 in the NESCAC and 5-10 overall, became an 88-72 victory after Bates scored 53 points in the second half.
The Bobcats were led by forward Kate McLaughlin, who scored 24 points and grabbed 19 rebounds to carry her team. Trinity was hurt by an unbalanced performance, with only five players able to get on the scoreboard.
In a battle of teams that aren't going to take anyone's attention away from Division I powerhouse, UConn, Wesleyan finally broke into the win column with a home victory over Connecticut College. The Cardinals scored the game's first nine points, then were outscored 9-1, before using a 12-4 run to take a 21-13 lead that they would never relinquish.
The team extended a 32-23 halftime lead to 46-27 with a 14-4 run in the first 6:06 of the second half and never looked back, on the way to a 70-42 thrashing.
In Friday night's action, aside from the Jumbos' win, Amherst scored a 58-46 win over Bates, Bowdoin defeated Bates, 70-57, and Colby was an 84-70 victor over Williams.
Those results, combined with Tufts' split over the weekend, mean that the Jumbos are tied with Wesleyan for sixth in the division, two and a half games behind Bowdoin and Colby. The top seven teams will be invited to participate in the inaugural NESCAC tournament next month, with a berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament at stake.
