Box Score
SWARTHMORE, Pa. – Alison Wolff
posted team highs with 14 points and eight rebounds to lead Swarthmore past Gettysburg
70-63 in the first round of the Centennial Conference (CC) women’s basketball
playoffs on Thursday. Karen
Berk added eight of her 10 points before halftime for the Garnet, who
used a 23-6 run over the final seven minutes of the first half to key the victory.
Wolff sealed the win by scoring all of her points in the second half, including
a 10-for-13 showing from the free throw line.
Swarthmore
(16-10) will face top-seeded Dickinson in the CC semifinals on Saturday in Carlisle.
Jen Bengel (Timonium, MD/Roland Park Country School),
named to the All-CC first team earlier in the week, scored a game-high 18 points
for the Bullets, who were making their first CC playoff appearance since 1997.
Emily Falk (Boiling Springs, PA/Boiling Springs) and Katie
Eiden (Silver Spring, MD/Georgetown Visitation) also hit double digits
with 10 points apiece.
Similar
to the teams’ two regular-season meetings, the hosts came away with a victory.
Behind nine points from Eiden, Gettysburg (13-13) jumped
to a 21-14 lead with 7:02 remaining in the first half before the Garnet took charge.
Kristen Lee hit a 3-pointer, Berk added a
jumper and Lee followed a Bullet timeout with a 2-point bucket to tie the game
at 21. Bengel put Gettysburg ahead 22-21 with a free throw, but Lauren Kett
scored back-to-back field goals and Swarthmore never trailed again.
Back-to-back 3-pointers by Debra Farrelly
and Jennifer Stevenson extended the lead to 35-26. Berk scored with
five seconds left to make it a 10-point advantage before Falk answered at the
buzzer to pull the visitors within 37-29 at the break.
Despite hitting only 7 of 22 shots in the second half,
the Garnet maintained an 8- to 13-point cushion until the final minutes.
Six points from Falk trimmed Swarthmore’s 10-point lead
to 62-57 with 1:31 remaining, but Wolff went 6-for-6 from the charity stripe in
the final 81 seconds to close out the win.
With
her 18-point outing, Bengel moved into fifth place on the program’s all-time scoring
list, wrapping up her junior season with 1,189 points.
Senior Elizabeth Ross (Chestertown, MD/St. Andrew’s [DE]),
a second-team All-CC choice, scored eight points to finish seventh on the program’s
all-time scoring list with 1,059 points. Ross also pulled down a game-high nine
rebounds, closing as the program’s seventh-leading career rebounder (764).
Farrelly finished with 12 points while Lee added 11 points and
seven rebounds. Berk also hit double digits with 10 points.
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