BY ANDREW GREENBLATT

In print | Published February 19, 2009

The Garnet women’s basketball team fell at home last Saturday to Gettysburg College by a score of 65-78. The Gettysburg loss was the latest in a heartbreaking stretch, which includes three straight conference losses and four losses in the last five games. Despite the support of several Swarthmore women’s basketball alumnae who returned to Tarble Pavilion for the alumnae game earlier in the day, the Garnet could not pull off a victory. A win would have allowed the Garnet to stay only one game away from the playoffs, but the loss against Gettysburg leaves the team with a middling 8-8 record in the conference.

Add weekend wins by Dickinson and Franklin & Marshall (both 10-6) to the equation, and Swarthmore’s playoff chances look dire. “It’s a scenario similar to what the Philadelphia Eagles lucked into this past season,” Coach Renee DeVarney said. In the Centennial playoff picture, the teams in third through sixth places (Johns Hopkins, Franklin & Marshall, Gettysburg and Dickinson) all have a record of 10-6. Because Swarthmore split the season series with Dickinson and Johns Hopkins, but fell both times to Franklin & Marshall and Gettysburg, the Garnet must win their last two games while Dickinson and Johns Hopkins both must lose their last two games in order for the Garnet to make the playoffs. This would result in a three-way tie, leaving each team at a record of 10-8, and a multi-layered tiebreak that would land the Garnet in the post season.

Swarthmore’s next two games are against Washington and Haverford, who are both 5-11 in the Centennial. Hopkins goes up against Bryn Mawr (0-17) and Washington, while Dickinson plays Muhlenberg (16-0) and Franklin & Marshall (10-6).

Despite the Garnet’s bleak playoff hopes, DeVarney said that the team maintains a positive attitude. “We knew going into last week that it was the most challenging week of the year. It also happened to be the time a couple of starters were battling that stomach virus,” DeVarney said. However, the team makes no excuses, holding to its yearlong motto of “Adapt, Adjust, Advance,” DeVarney said.

The Garnet plan is to simply advance. Captain Melissa Grigsby ’09 made her team’s goal very clear for the remainder of the season: “We are gunning to definitely win our last two games and finish the season off with a winning record, which is something that hasn’t been done since I’ve been here,” she said. Whether the Garnet make the Centennial conference playoffs or not, there is still a chance that they will make the ECAC regional postseason tournament, which selects competitive teams that did not qualify for the NCAA tournament. A selection to the ECACs would give the Garnet a chance to finish with 16 wins, which DeVarney said would be “outstanding.”

In order to have any chance at accomplishing this feat, the Garnet must improve their defensive play. On Saturday, they surrendered 78 points for the second straight game and allowed Gettysburg’s sophomore all-star Caitlin Moser to pour in a game-high 25 points. “I think that we did have some mistakes on defense and when you are playing a team like Gettysburg that has so many weapons, that can’t happen,” Summer Miller-Walfish ’11 said.

“Just like any of the other losses we have had earlier in the season, we’re going to just keep focusing on what’s ahead and finish strong,” Nicole Rizzo ’12 said in response to Saturday’s loss.

Despite their rough stretch in the past two weeks, the team has kept their intensity high. DeVarney described practice this week as “spirited,” and Miller-Walfish reinforced this perception. “We had a lot of intensity and a great attitude in practice today, and we’re really looking forward to beating Washington on Wednesday for senior night and then beating Haverford on Saturday to finish up the regular season on a high note,” she said.

While the past couple of weeks have been disappointing, the Garnet will not allow them to define the rest of the season. While it may no longer be up to the Garnet whether they will succeed in the Centennial Conference or not, much remains to be accomplished.

Swarthmore hasn’t finished with a winning record since 2005, when it tallied an impressive 16 wins. “[N]one of us are quite ready for the season to end,” DeVarney said, echoing a spirit that Grigsby shares: that the Garnet may reach that mark again in 2009.

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