HANOVER — The Dartmouth College women’s basketball team’s emotions and postseason hopes were each dealt significant blows on Saturday during the Big Green’s 82-75 loss to Ivy League rival Princeton at Leede Arena.
The Tigers dropped the hosts to 10-11 overall and 3-5 in league play, rallying from a 16-point deficit. The worst part of the evening, however, came midway through the second quarter, when Dartmouth point guard Cy Lippold went down with what appeared to be a serious injury to her left knee.
Sixth-year Big Green coach Belle Koclanes emphasized that no firm diagnosis had yet been made on the senior’s health, but hearing Lippold’s anguished wails and watching her being carried off the court certainly raises the prospect that Dartmouth will be without its spark plug the rest of the way.
“Our hearts hurt so bad for Cy,” an emotional Koclanes said after the game. “She’s turned a huge corner of late and is playing like a leader. You want her to have the opportunity to finish her senior year, but she’s in a lot of pain right now.”
Dartmouth led by 16 points early in the second quarter and was keeping Princeton senior Bella Alarie, the daughter of former Duke standout Mark Alarie, at least somewhat under wraps. However, by halftime, the lithe and athletic forward had 27 points, en route to a 41-point night. The former Ivy League rookie and player of the year also figured in Lippold’s exit, which came 3 minutes, 49 seconds before intermission.
With Alarie on a breakaway from the right side and soaring to the hoop, Lippold, listed at 5-2, contested the play by racing back and across the lane. The pair met violently in the air, Lippold being whistled for a foul and landing awkwardly beneath the basket, screaming in pain.
“I’m not surprised,” Dartmouth forward Isalys Quinones said of Lippold’s willingness to collide with a much-larger opponent. “She thinks she’s bigger than she is, and that put her in a not-so-great situation. But she wasn’t going to let Bella get a wide-open layup.”
Koclanes, who ran onto the court to comfort Lippold, said the first thing she told the player was that she had successfully deflected the ball. Alarie sank both free throws, pulling the Tigers within three points and the halftime score was 40-35 for Dartmouth.
Losing Lippold’s 11.6 points per game, playmaking ability and heart was devastating, but Koclanes wouldn’t point to her departure as the reason Dartmouth lost.
The Tigers took their first lead since the game’s opening minute when they went ahead, 45-43, three minutes into the third quarter. Although the Big Green stayed close for a few minutes, it trailed by eight points when the stanza concluded.
“Our transition defense is what hurt us,” Koclanes said. “They make you pay if you leave their 3-point shooters open, but we started to get into foul trouble and had to go to our bench. That meant some tough matchups with Bella and she had her way with us in the paint, the way she pretty much does with the entire league.”
Quinones had 22 points and six rebounds, Kealy Brown had 14 points and four assists and sharpshooter Katie Douglas added 11 points, sinking 3 of 5 attempts from behind the arc. Dartmouth used 11 players. Princeton (13-9, 5-2) scored 24 second-chance points.
Dartmouth has six regular-season games remaining to try and reach the third edition of the four-team Ivy League tournament, which is being held at Yale this season. Only twice during the past decade has a 6-8 team finished fourth in the league and that occurred eight and 10 years ago. The Big Green needs to go 4-2 down the stretch to finish 7-7, but under Koclanes it has staged three 3-3 endings and a pair of 2-4 conclusions to the regular season.
Notes: Koclanes pointed to a photo on the wall of the Big Green’s meeting room after the game. It shows the basketball backboard and hoop attached to the Lippold family’s living room wall. Set at the correct height, the hoop allows for free-throw shooting and, from a certain position, 3-point heaves. … Mark Kulbis, of late the women’s basketball team’s strength and conditioning coach, is leaving to assume the same role for the Bucknell University football team. Kulbis, who has also worked with Big Green football, joined the athletic department three years ago. … It was not immediately known if Alarie’s performance was the most points scored by a women’s player in Leede Arena history.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.