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BY VICTOR BRADY

In print | Published January 28, 2010

The Swarthmore women’s basketball team had two chances this past week to defeat a ranked opponent for the first time in program history. But two valiant efforts ended in losses to #24 Gettysburg and #12 Muhlenberg at Tarble Pavillion as the Garnet dropped to 0-13 all time against Top-25 opponents.

After losing a heartbreaker at Gettysburg on January 6, Swarthmore came out strong against the Bullets on Saturday, building up an 11-point lead early in the second half of play. But Gettysburg slowly chipped away at the Garnet deficit over the final 17 minutes, tying the game with less than a minute remaining to force overtime.

In the extra session, the Bullets’ Sarah Kinsley took over, scoring all eight points in overtime for Gettysburg and helping to bury the Garnet 60-57. It was the fourth consecutive game for the Garnet decided by five or fewer points.

In the loss, Swarthmore committed 31 turnovers and had 32 fewer field-goal attempts than the Bullets.

“[Ball-handling] is something that everyone knows that they need to get better at, but that is one of those skills that takes a lot of individual practice,” said Coach Renee DeVarney, in her fifth year on the bench for Swarthmore. “And it’s not necessarily just the ball-handling [in general], but specifically in very stressful trapping situations at the end of games.”

But coming out on Monday against the 12th-ranked Mules, the Garnet were able to control the game tempo and minimize turnovers, trailing Muhlenberg by only six points at the half. But a 12-2 run early in the second half propelled the Mules to their 10th conference victory this season.

Genny Pezzola ’12 believes that strong practice habits will help the team decrease turnovers. “To beat teams we need to [put ball-pressure] on each other at practice and learn to take care of the ball that way … we need to play aggressive and smart, and we need to out hustle every team.”

After the two losses, the Garnet knows that it will not be easy to move up into the fifth spot in the Centennial Conference. But, tied for seventh in the Conference after Monday, the Garnet refuses to give up.

The two recent match-ups with ranked opponents are only the latest tests on a brutal schedule for the Garnet, who has the 49th toughest schedule this year out of 433 Division III teams. With their individual performances over the last week, Stockbower moved into sole possession of third-place on the Swarthmore career rebounding list while Pam Costello ’10 now sits seventh all-time in career assists.

Pezzola, who scored 11 points off the bench against Muhlenberg in her third straight game in double figures, knows that the team will remain competitive through the final stretch of their schedule as they look to move up towards the fifth and final spot in the Conference playoff picture.

“Scrappy play will get us back in contention for that fifth seed. We want the win so bad, and once we show how much we love playing the game and how much we want to win through scrappy playing, hustling and fighting for every possession, we will be able to win those close games,” said Pezzola, who continues to make an impact both on and off the stat sheets, taking charges, finding offensive rebounds and forcing tie-ups throughout the season. “Not only does scrappy play sometimes result in a basket or a rebound or an extra possession, it also raises the team’s energy level on the court, which will in turn make every player on the court and on the bench want the win so much more.”

Coach DeVarney is thrilled with the performance of Pezzola, who has emerged as a scoring threat to complement Katherine Stockbower ’11 and Ceylon Bodur ’11. “She is fantastic, and she has a great skill in three point shooting, is an aggressive athlete, and brings a lot of energy and a great attitude, and all of that combined makes a big difference on the team.”
It will be this combination of team-wide energy, positive attitude and aggressive play on the court that has the potential to keep the Garnet in playoff contention. “We have nine conference games left. A lot can happen. We are not counting anyone as an easy win and we’re not writing anyone off as [unbeatable],” added DeVarney.

The Garnet returns to action on Saturday at Franklin and Marshall before returning home to host McDaniel on Monday. Action of both games will be streamed live online through the athletics.swarthmore.edu website on the Garnet Sports Network.

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