The first half of Saturday's championship was one of the most defensive-minded stanzas in school history as the two teams combined for only 24 points in the period. The Polar Bears, who knocked off Colby College 73-61 in Friday night's second semifinal, scored the first nine points of the game, including six from the trio of Jessie Mayol, Kristi Royer and Lora Trenkle.
Amherst rallied behind Sara Bozorg '03 and Co-captain Hallison Putnam '02, closing to within five, 13-8, before a Trenkle three gave the Bears an eight-point edge at the intermission.
The Jeffs opened the second half, erupting for nine points in the first 4:36. The hosts closed to within two on a Putnam three-pointer and a free throw from Sarah Walker '03, but Bowdoin answered, eventually going back up by seven on a Trenkle three-pointer.
Another three-pointer from Bozorg eventually cut Bowdoin's lead back to four, 35-31, with 7:42 to play, but the Polar Bears, the best shooting team in the NESCAC, hit too many big shots down the stretch. A shot-clock-beating jumper from Polar Bear senior Lauren Myers put Bowdoin ahead by eight with 4:32 to go, and a three-pointer late in the shot clock from first-year Kristina Fugate pushed the lead out to nine, 45-36, just inside the three-minute mark. Bowdoin iced the game on the foul line, hitting on seven of their last eight charity tosses to seal the win.
"Bowdoin hit some big shots that kept us from pulling even," said Putnam. "We never backed down, we just couldn't make up for the first-half deficit."
The opposite was true in Friday's semifinal, where the Jeffs faced the fourth-seeded Bobcats of Bates College. The Jeffs opened the game ice-cold from the field, while the Bobcats were red-hot, hitting on six of their first nine attempts from the field. Bates had a 16-0 lead just 6:02 into the game.
After trailing by as much as 17 in the next few minutes, the Jeffs spent the rest of the half chipping away at the lead, keyed by back-to-back three-pointers from Russell. Co-captain Charlotte Taylor '01 added six first-half points, and Bozorg scored seven, as Amherst cut the lead to nine, 31-22, by the intermission.
The Jeffs wasted almost no time in mounting a second-half run. After Russell connected on a pretty jumper 12 seconds after halftime, the Jeffs rolled off eight more points, while the Amherst defense began to shut down the Bates offense. The surge gave Amherst its first lead of the game, 32-31, at the 17:23-mark.
"We've been down at halftime before," said Putnam. "We just came out in the second half with a lot of momentum and we made a great run to regain the lead."
After a Bates bucket, the Jeffs rolled off eight consecutive points, finishing an 18-2 half-opening spurt that gave the hosts the lead for good.
The Bobcats eventually closed to within one late in the contest, but Putnam and Russell were flawless from the charity stripe when it counted. Putnam, an 85.4 percent free throw shooter for the year, knocked down four charity tosses to put the Jeffs ahead 55-50 with 1:39 to go, before Russell iced the game with two late free throws. After a Kate McLaughlin three-pointer for Bates, Russell, an 88.9 percent free-throw shooter for the year, drained two shots with 9.4 ticks left to seal the 57-53 win.
Though the loss the following night to Bowdoin would keep the Jeffs from locking up their first-ever bid to the NCAA Tournament, the win over Bates helped Amherst clinch the top seed in the ECAC Tournament, their first post-season appearance in five years.
In tonight's quarterfinals, the Jeffs will host eighth-seeded Framingham State College, whom the Jeffs defeated in Framingham, 80-63, on Jan. 6. "We have an idea of what to expect," said Putnam. "We know they'll be aggressive. We know they want to beat us. All we have to do is play two solid halves and we're in the semis."
The winner of tonight's 7:00 p.m. tip-off advances to Saturday's semifinals against the winner of tonight's game between Colby and Bates. The other two quarterfinals feature sixth-seeded Colby-Sawyer College at third-seeded Plymouth State College, and the seventh-seeded MIT Engineers at second-seeded Wellesley College. With a win tonight, Amherst would host both the semifinals and Sunday afternoon's championship game.