CHESTERTOWN, Md. – The Ursinus College women's basketball team used an impressive second half-opening stretch to push through a tight, low-scoring grind at Washington College this evening, holding the hosts scoreless for the first six minutes of the third quarter to provide just enough cushion for a 54-41 victory. The Bears concocted a 15-0 spurt spanning the second and third quarters to turn a three-point deficit into a 12-point advantage, remaining perfect in Centennial Conference play, seizing sole possession of first place in the league standings, and scoring their first victory in Chestertown since 2010 in one fell swoop.
The home team had won the last ten meetings between these schools, but Ursinus (6-5, 5-0) reversed that trend to extend its best start to Centennial Conference play since the 1996-97 campaign and set up a first-place showdown with McDaniel on Saturday afternoon. The Green Terror come to Collegeville sporting a 4-0 mark in league play.
The Bears continued to get stellar play from its senior quartet. Alyssa Polimeni (Berkeley Heights, N.J.) flirted with a triple-double once more, collecting game highs of 15 points and seven assists in addition to a career high-tying nine rebounds, while Jessica Porada (Morristown, N.J./Morris Catholic) finished with 14 points and seven boards. Caroline Shimrock (Lansdale, Pa./Gwynedd-Mercy Academy) added 12 points, eight of them in a critical run late in the second quarter, and Elana Roadcloud (Roslyn, Pa./Springside School) coupled six points with a game-high 12 rebounds, the fifth game with at least a dozen boards for the CC's rebounding leader.
Neither team could establish control in a first half that was as tight as could be. Neither side led by more than five points in the first two frames, which featured six ties and three lead changes. Washington College (3-6, 0-3) started to gain a foothold in a 7-0 spurt spanning the end of the first quarter; Alexis Krahling buried a 3-pointer with 1 second remaining to forge a 16-all tie, and the Shorewomen held the Bears without a point for the first 5:13 of the second quarter.
But Ursinus only allowed four points during that drought, which Shimrock ended with a jumper at 4:47. Shimrock scored the last six points of the half, draining a pair of treys and putting the Bears on top, 26-23, with one that just beat the halftime buzzer. Shimrock made all three of her shots in the first half, and Porada matched her with eight points of her own to help counteract ten from Krahling.
Ursinus came storming out of the intermission, scoring the first nine points of the third quarter to open up a 12-point lead. Sophomore guard Rachel Guy (Chadds Ford, Pa./Cardinal O'Hara) opened the half with a 3-pointer, and Porada, Polimeni, and Shimrock added baskets to make it 35-23 before Washington College snapped a nearly six-minute stretch without a point on a triple by Ali Grundy at the 4:04 mark of the period.
The Bears still led by a dozen going into the fourth, where the Shorewomen briefly got it back to single digits at 46-37 with 6:49 remaining. But Shimrock keyed a 6-0 run with a jumper, allowing Ursinus to breathe easy as the final minutes ticked off the clock.
Ursinus limited Washington College to 31.6-percent shooting (18 of 57) and held Grundy, the conference's second-leading scorer, to ten points on a 4-of-12 effort from the field. Krahling, meanwhile, was held scoreless after halftime. Washington College made only 6 of its 25 attempts (24 percent) in the second and third quarters.
The 41 points scored by the Shorewomen were the fewest by an Ursinus opponent in a league contest since a 51-33 defeat of Gettysburg in 2013.