Prior to last weekend, the last time the Red won a game away from Newman Arena was over ten months ago when Cornell beat Dartmouth for the right to play in the NCAA tournament. The women’s basketball team finally ended the away losing streak, beating Brown, 74-62, and Yale, 57-42, which were also the team’s first wins outside of New York in over 11 months.
The Red (6-9, 2-1 Ivy) opened the weekend at Brown (3-14, 1-2) where it had its highest scoring game of the season with 74 points. Junior captain Lauren Benson also had her highest scoring performance of the season, leading the Red with a career-high 20 points.
[img_assist|nid=34642|title=Unstoppable|desc=Junior guard Lauren Benson scored 35 points in the Red’s weekend sweep of Yale and Brown.|link=node|align=left|width=|height=0]
Senior co-captain Shannon Scarselletta also put forth another solid performance, leading Cornell with seven boards to complement her 18 points. Scarselletta connected on 6-of-9 attempts from the field, as well as 6-of-7 from the charity stripe.
Scarselletta was not the only Red player shooting well against Brown. Cornell shot 49 percent from the floor, up from its season average of 39 percent. That includes a 60 percent performance in the first half, which was good enough to give the Red a 38-25 lead at the intermission.
Brown shot a respectable 41 percent overall, including reaching a 50 percent clip in the second half. Despite outscoring Cornell 37-36 in the second half, Brown was not able to make up for the 13-point halftime deficit and eventually lost by the 12-point margin.
Cornell traveled to New Haven, Conn., the following day and would eventually return to Ithaca with a weekend sweep. The Bulldogs (9-9, 2-2) were only able to score one field goal in the first half, indicative of their eventual 57-42 loss.
Cornell beat Yale in an eerily similarly fashion as they beat Brown, dominating the first half and then cruising to victory in the second. The Red shot 42 percent in the first while holding Yale to 23 percent from the floor, good enough to double-up Yale in the half. Cornell went into the intermission with a 30-15 lead.
Yale connected on nearly twice as many shots in the second half and was able to tie the second stanza 27-27, but it was not enough as the Red continued to shoot well from the floor, hitting 44 percent of its attempts.
Against Yale, Cornell dominated the long-range game. The Red shot 29 percent from behind the arc while holding the Bulldogs to just seven percent from long range. Cornell also outshot Yale from the charity stripe, hitting on 67 percent compared to Yale’s 37 percent.
Junior Allie Fedorowicz led the Red against the Bulldogs, scoring 17 points while grabbing six of Cornell’s 46 rebounds — 16 more than the Bulldogs. Sophomore forward Susie Doyle had a game-high 12 rebounds, and Benson had 15 points to match Fedorozicz in double digits. No Bulldogs reached double digits against the Cornell defense.