After two rounds of the Div. III NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, the NESCAC still has one team alive. Showing why they have been the No. 1 squad in the country for a majority of the season, the Bowdoin Polar Bears have encountered some sweet success in the tournament, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen. Meanwhile, Williams, which earned the NESCAC's only at-large bid, fell to Southern Maine in the first round of action on Friday.
Even on the national stage, the Polar Bears, who finished 9-0 in NESCAC play this season, have not yet encountered much of a threat, rolling past Mount Holyoke 74-57 on Friday and second-round foe Keene State 77-52 the following evening. After the pair of wins, the NESCAC powerhouse will face-off against Rochester in the sectionals on Friday - the seventh-consecutive year the team has advanced at least that far in the national tournament.
But with star senior forward Eileen Flaherty playing in the last postseason of her career, the team hopes to outdo past successes rather than merely match them. The last time the squad reached the NCAA title game was in 2004, during Flaherty's freshman year. And if a national championship is in the Polar Bears' future they will have to win four more games this season - not too daunting a task considering they have rattled off 28 wins already this year and are certainly one of the favorites in this year's tourney.
On the other hand, the Ephs did not meet the postseason with nearly as much success, losing to Southern Maine 68-62 in first-round action Saturday. It was a heartbreaking loss for a Williams team that battled back from a 13-point deficit in the first half to tie the game at 60 with 1:45 remaining. But the comeback victory was not in the cards for coach Patricia Manning's squad, as Southern Maine combined for eight of the game's final 10 points to pull away with the victory.
With a 65-54 win over Fitchburg State, Southern Maine earned itself a trip to the third round where it will battle Calvin State for the right to move on to the Elite Eight.
-by Rachel Dolin
