New Coach Brings Press to Women Cagers
Up-tempo game got Liz Feeley early wins, but midseason slump put Ivy title out of reach
There weren't many new faces on the women's basketball team at the beginning of the season. Princeton (16-9 overall; 6-5 Ivy) returned 10 players (including five seniors) from the previous year and added only two freshmen to the squad. But the Tigers' most important face was new-head coach Liz Feeley. Feeley replaced Joan Kowalik, who had coached the Tigers for 11 years and whose 148 victories made her the winningest coach in Princeton women's basketball history. Feeley came from Colgate, where in just three years she had turned a struggling program (which was 5-22 the year before she arrived) into a Patriot League contender. With a new coach came a new approach to the Tigers' game. Consequently, the team faced a period of transition as it adjusted to its new taskmaster. Immediately after taking the reins, Feeley challenged the team to play her uptempo style of basketball. She wanted to press opponents the full length of the court and to push the ball up the floor for fastbreak opportunities and transition baskets. The new coach also gave her team a goal: Improve every single day. Along with a new system came new positions for most of Feeley's players. "Other than [senior point guard] Andrea Razi, everyone had new roles," she says. Junior guard and forward Kim Allen, who emerged as the team's leading scorer and rebounder (and who is a rising star in the league), stepped into the starting lineup, as did sophomore guard Zakiya Pressley. Senior forward Kim Curry moved into the "sixth-woman" role, frequently coming off the bench to revitalize the team. Forward Tricia Klock '96 and her classmate center Dana Moore remained at their positions from last season, but were asked to run the floor more than they had in the past. The veteran squad seemed to make the difficult transition to a faster game relatively smoothly, and Princeton opened its season by winning two tournaments. Heading into the opening weekend of Ivy League play, Princeton boasted a 9-4 record and was hoping it could win its first Ivy title in more than a decade. "The strides that we've seen the team make both individually and as a team were incredible," says Feeley. "So, initially we talked about winning an Ivy title." The Tigers opened their league season with four victories and only one loss; the team seemed poised to make a run at the championship and the NCAA tournament berth that accompanies it. Then the Tigers dropped three of four home games, losing to Harvard, Dartmouth, and Yale in February. The team's swoon exposed two problems: Princeton had trouble grabbing rebounds, and it appeared to lose concentration at times when playing the league's top teams. Harvard grabbed 13 more rebounds than the Tigers did in an 81-56 drubbing on February 9. And though Princeton managed to out-rebound Dartmouth the next night, it failed to come up with a couple of the game's most crucial rebounds. In the second half, when Dartmouth missed some free throws, Princeton allowed the Big Green to get rebounds and convert them into three-point baskets. Dartmouth used those points to hold on to a 70-62 victory. The situation was similar against Yale-the Tigers controlled the boards, but failed to grab rebounds at important points in the game. "I don't think we collapsed," says Feeley. "We're still trying to deal with the mental pressure of the Ivy League . . . I think that guards on opposing teams out-rebounded us. Rebounding by our guards was something we worked on. Rebounding is an attitude. It all goes back to mental toughness." Princeton showed its mental toughness was growing when it went on the road and beat Dartmouth, 65-63, on February 23. For the first time in their careers, this year's seniors had won in Hanover, New Hampshire. But the following night, the Tigers showed they still had room for improvement when they fell to Harvard, 64-50. All in all, Feeley considers her first year a success, because her team continuously improved its play throughout the season. She views even the 1-4 stretch in the middle of Princeton's league schedule more as a learning experience than a slump. "The win at Dartmouth took us in the right direction," she says. "I think that every now and then we took a step backwards, but we came back strong. I think we've really succeeded in that." The Tigers ended their home season with games against Columbia and Cornell on March 1-2; they will play their season finale at Penn on March 5. Despite the loss of five seniors, the future looks bright for next season's team. Allen and Pressley emerged as leaders, and sophomore guards Sara Wetstone and Lynn Makalusky developed into solid players that will give the Tigers a core of veterans. Those veterans will, in turn, help along the two returning freshmen, forwards Lea Ann Drohan and Julie Angell, as well as the new arrivals Feeley brings in. Together, they should ease the departure of Princeton's veteran front line. -Tom Helms '96 Tom Helms is a sportswriter for The Daily Princetonian. Squash: Men and Women Fall to Harvard All season the men's squash team (10-1 overall, 5-1 Ivy) had hoped to get an upset in the season-ending NISRA Team Championships, held March 23-35 in New Haven, Connecticut. In order to beat Harvard, Coach Bob Callahan '77 told The Daily Princetonian he'd need to "have their entire team get food poisoning and their bus go off the road on the way to the match . . . Actually, that wouldn't have to happen if things work out just right." Clearly, Princeton's hopes rested on every member of the team playing a perfect game-and then some. Instead, Princeton was itself upset by Amherst, 5-4, and Harvard took its sixth consecutive national title by slamming Amherst, 9-0. The loss denied Princeton even its slim chance at an upset and was especially bitter for the Tigers, because the Crimson had handed them their only other loss. Harvard beat Princeton, 6-3, in Cambridge on February 4. "We were all looking forward to playing Harvard," said Callahan. "The Harvard coach even told me later that he was disappointed we weren't playing them in the finals." Amherst surprised the Tigers with the strength of its third-best through seventh-best players. Seniors Jason Jewell, ranked first for Princeton, and classmate Jack Wyant, ranked second, shut out their opponents, 3-0, in their matches, but Amherst dominated the Tigers' lower-ranked players (including sophomores Ben Fishman and Pierre Bastien and freshman Gardner Lamotte), sending Princeton to play in the consolation round. Once there, the team recovered and dominated a strong Penn squad, 8-1, to capture third place in the tournament. Jewell called Princeton's performance against Penn "a complete turnaround." Earlier in the season, Penn had fared much better, losing 6-3 to the Tigers in Philadelphia on February 7. Until it met Harvard in February, Princeton had coasted through its season, shutting out its opponents, 9-0, in five of its eight team matches and winning 60 of 63 individual matches. Jewell said the Tigers' success against much weaker opponents may have made the team "build up overconfidence. Even if you don't have that attitude, you can't really help it," he said. "It becomes ingrained that you're going to win." As it looks to next season, Princeton will hope to offset the loss of its two top players to graduation by developing its youngsters. Callahan will need Fishman and this year's freshmen to step up if he hopes to stop the Harvard juggernaut next year. Princeton's top players traveled to the NISRA men's individual national championships, which were held in Hartford, Connecticut, on March 1-3. Women's Squash The women (9-3 overall, 3-2 Ivy) had a similar season to that of the men. A strong team, the Tigers were also gunning for perennial favorite Harvard. And although Princeton was missing its number-one player, junior Katherine Johnson (who was studying abroad for the fall semester), the team steamrolled over many of its opponents, 9-0. In its first match on December 2, inexperience was blamed for Princeton's 5-4 loss to Brown-the Tigers counted four freshmen among their top nine players. And since Johnson would return before the team traveled to Harvard in February, hopes were high that Princeton could upset the Crimson. Despite wins from Johnson and her teammates Charlotte Reylea '96 and Laurie Gustafson '96, however, Harvard prevailed, 6-3. But the three individual victories were more than Tiger fans had expected and fueled optimism that Princeton could win when the teams met again at the Howe Cup, held in New Haven on February 16-18. When the anticipated rematch came about in the finals, Princeton got good performances from its players. The Tigers' top player, Johnson, beat her Crimson counterpart, Ivy Pochoda, and the two freshmen at the bottom of the lineup, Meghan Murphy (number eight) and Charlotte Reylea (number nine), also won. But women's head coach Gail Ramsay had no illusions about the strength of the Harvard team. While Princeton could compete with the Crimson at the top and bottom of the lineup, Ramsay said Harvard's middle players were "solid," and added that the Tigers "were unlikely to win" the middle matches. "If things were ideal," added the coach, "there would be a glimmer of hope to pull off five wins." Princeton fell short, however, again losing to Harvard, 6-3, and taking second place. Princeton's top players traveled to the women's individual national championships, which were also held in New Haven on March 1-3. This story was compiled from squash articles written by Jeff Dinski '99 (men's) and Oakley Brooks '99 and Rod Spode (women's) for The Daily Princetonian. Scoreboard
Men's Basketball (18-5 overall; 10-1 Ivy) Princeton 65, Dartmouth 39 Princeton 65, Harvard 58 Women's Basketball (16-9 overall; 6-5 Ivy) Princeton 65, Dartmouth 63 Harvard 64, Princeton 50 Men's Fencing (11-2 overall; 2-2 Ivy) Princeton 17, New Hampshire 10 Princeton 23, Haverford 4 Princeton 22, Vassar 5 Princeton 24, Massachusetts 3 Princeton 16, NYU 11 Princeton 14, St. John's 13 Yale 15, Princeton 12 Princeton 16, Rutgers 11 Princeton 19, North Carolina 8 Princeton 14, Penn 13 Women's Fencing (12-2 overall; 3-2 Ivy) Princeton 31, Hunter 1 Princeton 28, Haverford 4 Princeton 30, Massachusetts 2 Princeton 27, Vassar 5 Princeton 21, NYU 11 Princeton 19, St. John's 13 Yale 17, Princeton 15 Princeton 18, Rutgers 14 Princeton 24, North Carolina 8 Princeton 17, Penn 15 Men's Ice Hockey (6-17-4 overall; 4-13-3 ECAC) Princeton 5, Dartmouth 3 Vermont 5, Princeton 1 Women's Ice Hockey (10-16 overall; 3-7 Ivy; 8-8 ECAC) Princeton 6, Boston College 4 Dartmouth 2, Princeton 1 Men's Swimming (9-3 overall; 8-1 EISL) Princeton 160, Dartmouth 79 Penn St. 91, Princeton 72 Princeton 148, James Madison 13 Princeton 152, Columbia 129 Princeton 172, Navy 119 Men's Squash (10-1 overall; 5-1 Ivy) Princeton 9, Williams 0 Princeton 9, Dartmouth 0 Harvard 6, Princeton 3 Princeton 6, Penn 3 Princeton 9, Yale 0 Princeton 6, Franklin & Marshall 3 NISRA Team Champs.-3rd Women's Squash (9-3 overall; 3-2 Ivy) Princeton 9, Amherst 0 Princeton 9, Williams 0 Princeton 9, Dartmouth 0 Harvard 6, Princeton 3 Princeton 7, Penn 2 Princeton 8, Yale 1 Howe Cup-2nd Princeton 9, Trinity 0 Women's Swimming (5-4 overall; 5-2 Ivy) Princeton 174, Dartmouth 26 Harvard 194, Princeton 109 Villanova 145, Princeton 130 Princeton 165, Columbia 135 Easterns-4th Men's Track (3-0 overall; 3-0 Ivy) Princeton 102, Yale 31 Princeton 102, Harvard 36 Heptagonals-1st Women's Track (2-1 overall; 2-1 Ivy) Princeton 60.5, Yale 25 Princeton 62.5, Harvard 60.5 Heptagonals-5th