Courtesy Bowdoin Sports Information

Box Score

BRUNSWICK, Maine - The Bowdoin College women's basketball team held off Tufts University 64-48 to win their seventh-straight New England Small College Athletic Conference Championship on Sunday afternoon. With the victory, the Polar Bears (26-1) earn the NESCAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament.

Both teams struggled in the opening half, as the squads combined for just nine points in the first ten minutes of the game. Bowdoin connected on just one of their first 14 shots as Tufts held a 6-3 lead at the halfway point of the opening period. The teams picked up the tempo offensively in the next ten minutes, however, as they traded the lead six times before the intermission. Consecutive three-pointers by Valerie Krah shortly before halftime lifted the Jumbos to a one-point lead, 22-21 at the break, as the Tufts senior had a game-high 10 points in first 20 minutes.

Tufts extended their advantage to four points, 26-22, on a Jenna Gomez jumper early in the second half. Bowdoin responded with their first run of the game, keyed by senior Julia Loonin. The Polar Bears ripped off a
10-1 run as Loonin buried a step-back three-pointer and a driving lay-in to give the hosts a 32-27 edge with 15 minutes to go.

The Polar Bears would never trail again, but the Jumbos refused to go away. Tufts managed to cut the lead to one point with 13 minutes left on a jumper from Kimberly Moynihan, but a quick 9-2 spurt by Bowdoin- capped by an Alexa Kaubris three-pointer- pushed the lead back to eight points.

A key juncture of the second half occurred with 6:45 to play, when Tufts' Laura Jasinski nailed a jumper to close the gap to two points, 44-42. Bowdoin's Caitlin Hynes was fouled on the ensuing possession and missed the front-end of a 1-and-1 opportunity. But Alexa Kaubris sailed in, grabbed the rebound and laid the ball back in to make it a four-point game. The clutch offensive board sparked a decisive 12-3 Bowdoin run that gave the reigning NESCAC champs a 58-45 edge with 2:45 to go.

Bowdoin had four players in double-figures, as Eileen Flaherty finished with a game-high 19 points. Julia Loonin scored 13, while Alexa Kaubris finished with 12. Leah Rubega was huge off the bench, scoring 12 points with nine rebounds.

Bowdoin was able to shut down Tufts' Krah in the second-half, holding the Jumbos' leading scorer to just two points in the period as she finished with a team-high 13. Khalilah Ummah finished with 12 points and seven boards off the bench for Tufts.

Tufts (18-8) will hope for an at-large bid when the field is announced on Sunday evening.

2007 NESCAC WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, February 17 at Higher Seeds
at No. 1 Bowdoin 61, No. 8 Trinity 50
at No. 2 Tufts 65, No. 7 Middlebury 50
at No. 3 Bates 63, No. 6 Amherst 53
at No. 4 Williams 63, No. 5 Wesleyan 53

Semifinals - Saturday, Feb. 24 at Bowdoin
at No. 1 Bowdoin 66, No. 4 Williams 46
vs. No. 2 Tufts 52, No. 3 Bates 39

Championship - Sunday, Feb. 25 at Bowdoin
at No. 1 Bowdoin 64, No. 2 Tufts 48

2007 NESCAC WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, February 17
3:00 p.m. at Higher Seeds
No. 8 at No. 1
No. 7 at No. 2
No. 6 at No. 3
No. 5 at No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, February 24
at Highest Remaining Seed
2:00 p.m./4:00 p.m.

Championship - Sunday, February 25
12:00 p.m.

Format
The top 8 teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Basketball Championship.  First round games will be conducted on Saturday, February 17, 2007 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, February 24 and Sunday, February 25, respectively.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play.  The top four seeds will host quarterfinal games with the number one seed drawing the number 8 seed, the 7th seed will play at the 2nd seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed.  Teams will be re-bracketed with the highest remaining seed after quarterfinal action hosting both the semifinal and final rounds.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Sunday, February 11.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Most conference wins (in games that are part of the conference schedule and count toward league standings).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.
• Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.
• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.
• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.