WELLESLEY, Mass. – Wellesley College basketball controlled the pace from the opening horn and distributed the ball well with 27 assists in a 76-39 performance over Dean College at Dorothy Towne Fieldhouse on Thursday afternoon. Thursday's victory marked Coach Jennifer Kroll's 150th on the sidelines for the Blue (6-7).
Sophomore Ava Shane (Plano, Texas) registered a team-high 21 points on 10-of-13 shooting while grabbing nine rebounds. Junior Trinity Barrow (Evans, Ga.) was efficient on both sides of the ball with 14 points, 11 boards, six assists and six steals. Barrow cracked the top-10 in Blue history in career assists (219). Wellesley shot 33-for-69 (47.8%) as a team and won the rebound battle, 46-32.
First-year Tanvi Agarwal (Woodinville, Wash.) scored 12 points. Sophomore Stacy Chen (Minneapolis, Minn.) dished out a personal-best five assists. Classmate Else Kunze-Hoeg (Eagan, Minn.) controlled the paint and recorded seven rebounds. Junior Amanda Cheng (Beijing, China) hit a trio of shots to end the game with six points. Sophomore Emaleena Elson (Irvine, Calif.) added six points and three assists.
The Bulldogs (5-8) were led by senior Abigail Lacy (Arroyo Grande, Calif.), who poured in 26 points with five three-pointers. Lacy pulled down eight reboundsÂ
Wellesley started off up 7-2 after five minutes of play. The Blue ran the lead to double digits at 13-3 and were up 15-5 after one quarter of play.Â
The Blue dominated the second quarter, winning 24-11 in the period to go up 39-16 at halftime. The hosts went 11-for-18 (61.1%) shooting the period.
The advantage grew to 25 points for the Blue earlier in the third quarter at 43-18. Dean briefly cut it to 20 before an 11-0 run by Wellesley made it 58-27 with 24 seconds left in the quarter. Dean hit a late layup to make it 58-29 with one period remaining.
Wellesley's lead hit as high as 43 (72-29) in the fourth quarter as the team cruised to a 76-39 final score.
Wellesley will begin NEWMAC competition at Mount Holyoke College on Saturday, January 17 at 1:00 PM. Dean hosts Rivier University in GNAC play at 1:00 PM on Saturday, January 10.
