West Massachusetts News

NESCAC Playoffs Preview: Ephs Vs. Bantams

The semifinal and final rounds of the NESCAC championship will take place this weekend at Tufts' Cousens Gymnasium. The #2 seeded Ephs will take on the #3 seeded Trinity Bantams at 4:30 PM on Saturday. Though Tufts had the best record in NESCAC play (9-1), Trinity possesses the best overall record of any team in the championship (21-4). In their last matchup, the Ephs topped the Bantams by just one point, 49-48. 

Looking Back

Williams' last game against Trinity got off to a very shaky start. The Bantams got to work quickly, floating the ball up and in for the first points of the game. Following this, they kept up a constant barrage of attacks to the middle. On the defensive end, the Bantams maintained a strong paint presence, forcing the Ephs to settle for pull up looks. 

Trinity had scored ten points by the time Mia Holtze got Williams' first bucket on a baseline drive, and scored six more throughout the quarter while Williams notched only two. 

Defense and grit were what turned the game around. While Trinity had shot above 40% in the first quarter, a refocused Williams defense brought that number down to just 8% in the second. Trinity's leading scorer, Reilly Campbell, scored all of the Bantams' five points in the quarter, while the Ephs put up ten points. Notably, half of the scoring effort came from the free throw line— throughout the game, the Ephs would go to the line 37 times to the Bantams' 11. 

The third quarter proceeded much as the second had, with half of Williams' points coming from the stripe and most of Trinity's scoring coming at the hands of Campbell. The Ephs' attack was more balanced— four players scored a combined total of ten points. 

At the beginning of the final quarter, Williams faced a five point deficit. With momentum on their side and defensive intensity still high, the Ephs chipped away at the Bantams' lead. Arianna Gerig scored both the free throw that tied the game and the layup that put the Ephs ahead for the first time all night.

Threes from Devin Biesbrock and Arianna Gerig gave the lead solidly to the Ephs, and good free throw shooting helped Williams stay ahead of Trinity for the rest of play. Gerig and Biesbrock led Eph scoring with 19 and 14 points respectively, while Reily Campbell and Emma Wax had 19 and 10 for the Bantams. 

Saturday's Game

The Ephs have won three in a row since the teams' last matchup, while the Bantams have gone 2-2, beating Middlebury and Amherst but losing to Bates and Tufts. 

Trinity had a strong paint presence last time the teams faced off, led by Reilly Campbell. When asked about how the team was planning on addressing their post play, Eph head coach Pat Manning said "Our focus is on team D."

She continued: "Our goal on the defensive end is always to not give up easy shots, and to force teams to rush their shots. That's been our strategy every game. It's key for us— what we do on the defensive end— because Trinity has a lot of options. Our goal defensively is to take away what we perceive to be their individual strengths, and force them to rush their shot or take a shot that they don't really want."

Coach Manning recognized that the team probably won't get so many shots at the line this time, and that a steadier offense will be necessary. "We scored nine baskets last time we played, and the rest came from the free throw line," she said. "While I was happy with how we attacked the hoop, we also rushed and dug ourselves into a hole to start the game. We were down 18-4 at one point. In that series, we were forcing shots, and that's what good defense does. Trinity's going to try to do the same thing to us that we're going to try to do to them. We needed to calm down a little bit and execute our stuff, so that's what we've been focusing on this week: our own execution on the offensive end and running our stuff at the speed we want." 

She remarked on what Bates and Tufts did well in their wins over Trinity, saying: "I think they played great D, and both teams attacked. Tufts is a transition team, Bates is a transition team as well. They had success in transition. We're a transition team— we want to run. They really pushed the pace, and both teams play good D. That's our conference, I think, that's what we're about, and that's why this year has been so fun for me because we're back to where we were defensively. Last year, it was like 'Who is this team?' We gave up too many easy shots that we don't usually give up. I think it's a trademark of the NESCAC, how we play D. That's why a lot of our games are low scoring games, teams take a lot of pride in their defense."

Coming back to the wins: "Those two were great games. Both teams just went at it, and Trinity did too. It was just back-and-forth. We want to limit their runs, and capitalize on ours. But in these tight games, there's so much parity that it's hard to string together a long run, so you have to just go possession by possession and try to be the best on that possession."

Finally, Manning addressed the differences between last time and now. "I think we're playing well. That was a big win for us and gave us confidence with other teams that we've played. It was a learning experience for our team, it was a period of growth for our team. Trinity's very talented, and had been consistently ranked all season. So, we knew we had to play well and we knew we had to do a good job playing team defense," she said.

On the defensive strategy: "We don't really focus just on one player, we want to take people out of their strengths. We're looking at more of the team concept on defense— is our help there. We played really solid help against them. But there's definitely things we can improve on. We have to control the boards, we can't give second shots, and our offense has to be smoother. Our passing was not the sharpest. Part of that is what their defense did to us, but it's executing our stuff, setting good screens, holding our screens, and things like that." 

Tickets are required to attend championship games, and they can be purchased at this webpage: https://bit.ly/3keMmfN. 

Original source can be found here