A rollercoaster season came to an end for the women's basketball team on Saturday afternoon, as the Bowdoin Polar Bears overcame a one-point halftime deficit to beat the Jumbos 52-41 and advance to the NESCAC semifinals.
Bowdoin, ranked sixth in the country with a 22-2 record, was a goliath on the horizon for Tufts, the underdog and seventh seed in the eight-team tournament. The Jumbos, however, refused to kowtow to the Polar Bears' pristine record, battling them back-and-forth throughout the first and much of the second halves.
The first half was a perfect storm for the Jumbos. Two quick fouls put sophomore Marisa Berne, one of Bowdoin's leading offensive threats, on the bench. The change unsettled the Polar Bears' powerhouse offense, and the Jumbos took advantage, holding the Bears to just 34 percent from the floor, eight percentage points below their season average.
"That was a big turning point in game," junior guard Valerie Krah said. "It certainly got our momentum going. We played great defense in the first half and took them away from their game. We made them take shots they don't normally take."
With Bowdoin offensively neutralized, the Jumbos capitalized on the other end, shooting 42 percent from the floor in the first half and carrying a 25-24 advantage into halftime. Twenty minutes in, the game looked very different from the Jan. 14 regular-season matchup between the two teams, during which the Polar Bears held a 12-point halftime lead en route to a 73-56 rout.
With Berne back on the court after intermission, however, Bowdoin was firing on all cylinders and overcoming a Jumbo defense that had neutralized its inside play in the first half. The Polar Bears broke a 31-31 tie with 13:30 remaining with an 8-0 run, taking a lead it would not relinquish.
The Jumbos stayed just close enough to keep Bowdoin nervous, and senior tri-captain Jessica Powers hit a jumper from the wing with 4:15 remaining to pull Tufts to within three, 40-37.
"All season, every time we got down, we never counted ourselves out," Powers said. "We're known for our comebacks, and we knew we were still in game. We did a good job of stopping their run and pulling closer before it got out of hand."
Bowdoin's flexible defense alternated between a man-to-man defense and a 1-3-1 zone to keep the Jumbo offense off-balance, and this made the difference in the second stanza. The second-seeded Polar Bears held Tufts to a mere 16 points in the final 20 minutes, allowing Bowdoin to skate by on its fewest points all season.
"We didn't get many second chances offensively," Powers said. "When we missed a shot, we didn't get the offensive rebound. We didn't stop attacking them, though, kept going at them, but you need to hit shots to win. We were held to 31 points for a long time, which killed us in the end."
Powers referenced the five-minute stretch midway through the second half during which the Jumbos failed to score a point, putting a tightly matched tie on the road to a Bowdoin win.
Berne, whose early absence sparked the first-half play that kept the Jumbos close for much of the game, sealed the win for her team with a three-pointer with a minute to play. The shot made gave Bowdoin a seven-point lead and put Tufts in a a three-possession deficit.
Although the Jumbos double-teamed Bowdoin's post players, the Polar Bears adjusted in the second half and still outscored the visitors 24-4 in the paint, a margin that alone accounted for the victory.
"We were definitely disappointed," Krah said. "We played a great game and came close to winning. If you don't win in a game like this you're automatically disappointed, even when you play well. It's sad for the seniors and the team to end the season with a loss like this."
The loss ended the 2005-2006 season and the careers of senior tri-captains Katherine Miller, Julia Verplank, and Powers.
"It's really hard," Powers said. "I never wanted it to end - when I look back, I'm not going to remember the wins and the losses. As much as I want to play next weekend, I can't, but I wouldn't trade this experience for anything."
The first round of the NESCAC tournament went much as predicted. As there were no upsets, the semifinals at Bates on Saturday will see Bowdoin facing No. 3 Wesleyan and No. 1 Bates against No. 4 Williams, with the winning teams meeting for the league title on Sunday.
