The Ithaca College women’s basketball team opened up its final weekend of the regular season by defeating the Bard College Raptors 91–36 on Feb. 16, improving to a 20–4 record for the season.
The evening marked the second Bomber victory of the season over the Raptors squad that has yet to pick up a Liberty League win this season and was in the midst of a 16 game losing streak. The Bombers got off on the right foot offensively, but their defense took a few minutes to catch up, with the Raptors hitting a few threes and getting some easy buckets inside. Graduate student guard Camryn Coffey started the game hot, scoring nine of her game-high 18 points in the first quarter alone. The South Hill squad appeared to pick up where it left off from its last contest, continuing to exploit mismatches in the paint. Two three-pointers from Raptors first-year guard Jessica Martin made it a 20–12 game in the Bombers’ favor after one quarter.
The second quarter was kicked off by a flawless transition play by the Bombers, with senior guard Graycen Dubin pushing the ball up the floor to fellow Senior guard Hannah Polce, who in turn found junior forward Anya Watkins cutting to the basket to finish the play. Ensuing three-pointers courtesy of Polce and Coffey put an end to any possibility of this game being competitive. The Bombers carried the momentum over to the other end of the floor, giving up only eight points for the quarter. The Bombers rolled to a 49-20 lead to end the half.
The third quarter was not dissimilar to the second, with the Bombers giving up nine points as opposed to eight this time around. Offensively, the ball movement was on point, with 28 team assists for the game by the South Hill squad. The Bombers continued to grow its lead, making it 73–29 going into the final quarter.
The final period gave the Bombers an opportunity to show how deep the team truly was, emptying the bench without taking its foot off the gas. Of the 14 players on the Bombers’ roster, 13 scored at least once. The Bombers got 53 points from its bench and cruised the rest of the way home.
Head coach Dan Raymond said he was eager to capitalize on the opportunity to give his nonstarters some extra playing time.
“Everybody was so excited for everybody else,” Raymond said. “I mean, we had 53 points from our bench, and I think that says a lot. And what it does is that makes sure that those kids who don’t get a lot of playing time get their opportunity, and they went out and took advantage of it.”
Junior guard Isabella Mittelman, who went a perfect three for three from deep tonight en route to 11 points off the bench, said she was pleased to see the team chemistry showcased before a big game to close out the season.
“It propels us forward into our game tomorrow,” Mittelman said. “Vassar’s a team that we really want to beat, so this game got us excited, hyped everybody up and got us looking forward to tomorrow.”
As Mittelman stated earlier, the next opponent for the Bombers is Vassar College, who sit atop the Liberty League standings. Raymond and the Bombers are looking to both avenge a loss earlier in the season and move up from the third to the second seed in the Liberty League, which they can accomplish with a victory and a Skidmore College defeat.
“What we talked about this week is focus and discipline, because [Vassar is] very good,” Raymond said. “They ended up losing tonight, so we have to decide what’s the best defense, because William Smith [the team who defeated Vassar] apparently played 2-3 zone against them all night, and we’ve been working on that a little bit, but we’re typically a man-to-man team, so we gotta figure that out. But again it’s about discipline and whatever we do we have to do it well.”
The Bombers will face the Vassar College Brewers at 2 p.m. Feb. 17 in Ben Light Gymnasium for their final regular season contest. The Bombers will also celebrate Senior Day, honoring their senior and graduate student players.
