The Judges rallied from 21 points down to close to within four, but were unable to overcome poor shooting as they lost to number seven ranked visiting Washington University of St. Louis on Sunday, 70-64. The loss snapped a four game winning streak and solid week for the Judges, who had blown out the University of Chicago on Friday and Tufts University on Wednesday. Brandeis dropped to 11-3 on the season, 3-2 in conference play.
Caitlin Malcolm '07 registered 21 points and nine rebounds, and Basia Gryzb '07 chipped in with 11 points and nine rebounds for Brandeis. The Judges trailed 43-22 only 30 seconds into the second half when they opened a furious run. Brandeis scored 15 unanswered points, eight from Malcolm, to pull within five points.
After the Bears (14-2) extended the lead to seven, Malcolm hit a three-pointer to pull the Judges within four with two minutes left. The Bears iced several free throws in the closing minutes and the Judges were unable to close the gap. Kelly Manning scored 21 points to lead Washington University.
"We didn't play the first 25 minutes of the game," coach Carol Simon said. "If we didn't play tentatively in the first half it would have been a different story. Some people might consider it a moral victory, but we know we can beat them. We don't believe in moral victories."
Danielle Fitzpatrick '04 scored 27 points and pulled down 10 rebounds to lead the Judges in an 82-63 rout over visiting University of Chicago on Friday. The Judges opened the second half with a 14-2 run and never looked back. Brandeis owned the interior, out-rebounding Chicago 43-24, 18-9 on the offensive glass. Most impressive of all was the Judges' ball movement, as they recorded 22 assists for 29 field goals. Jayne Wise '04 and Catherine Brady '05 each chipped in with 12 points and five assists. The Judges played a full court press on defense almost the entire game, forcing Chicago into flustered play and coming up with 12 steals.
"[Passing] is really important to our offense because we're not a one-on-one team, and our players know that," Simon said. "When you swing the ball and make that extra pass, you're going to get an open shot."
"We don't have any selfish players, and that's why we're succeeding this year," Fitzpatrick said. "It's a total team thing, everyone's willing to share the ball."
Fitzpatrick scored a career high 32 points, including the thousandth point of her career, while leading the Judges to an easy 85-63 win over visiting Tufts University on Wednesday. Christine Clancy '06 had 17 points and seven rebounds and Brady added 12 points. Brandeis shot 55 percent from the field, while holding the Jumbos to 38 percent shooting.
Fitzpatrick is the sixth woman in Brandeis history to reach the thousand point plateau, and is now fifth on the all-time scoring list.
"It was really exciting for me, it was really fun," Fitzpatrick said of the milestone. "But our first focus is to win every game we can."
The Judges finished out the week with a 3-2 record in the UAA and are entering what could potentially be the hardest stretch of the season. All but one of the Judges remaining games are against conference opponents, including a February 13th game against number one ranked University of Rochester, and a Feb. 20 rematch with Washington University.
"Now we're really getting into conference play, we're playing harder games, we're playing ranked teams," Wise said.
The Judges embark on a three game road trip this week, starting tomorrow at 7 pm against non-conference foe Babson College. The Beavers are 8-9 and are looking to snap a four game losing streak. The Judges travel to Cleveland to play Case Western Reserve on Friday, and to Atlanta to play Emory University on Sunday. The Spartans sit atop the UAA standings with a 4-1 conference record, and Emory is 6-8.
"We're taking it one game at a time, and we're not looking ahead," Simon said. "When you have all these conference games, you can't look ahead.