Coyne Toss

On Saturday night, the Dartmouth women’s basketball team came into Lavietes Pavilion and beat Harvard, snapping the Crimson’s 26-game Ivy winning streak and seriously challenging the continuation of its two-year reign as league kingpin.

The Crimson will not post another undefeated Ivy season this year.

But maybe Dartmouth will.

If not this year, maybe next year. Or the year after. Or the year after that.

With two freshmen and two sophomores in the starting lineup—and only two seniors on the entire roster—this talented Dartmouth team will only get better.

The youth that runs up and down the Big Green lineup calls to mind the 2001-2002 Harvard squad, a team that featured three underclassmen in its starting lineup, including a 6’3 freshman post player named Reka Cserny and sophomores Hana Peljto and Tricia Tubridy.

On Saturday night, underclassmen accounted for 76 of the Big Green’s 93 points and 31 of its 38 rebounds.

“We knew they were good,” Tubridy, now a co-captain, said.

But this good?

The centerpiece of the Dartmouth youth movement is freshman phenom Elise Morrison, the precocious 6’3 post player with an athletic lineage akin to the political lineage of the Kennedys or the substance-abuse pedigree of the Baldwins.

Her father played hockey at Michigan and later for the Philadelphia Flyers, her mother swam at Michigan and her sister plays hoops at Northwestern. One of her grandfathers played football at Michigan on the 1950 Rose Bowl championship team and her other grandfather played baseball at Michigan.

And then there’s her uncles. Uncle Chip played in three Rose Bowls and one Orange Bowl for Michigan, Uncle Tom swam at Michigan and qualified for the Olympics, Uncle Steve played in the Montreal Expos farm system and Uncle Bruce was drafted by the San Francisco Giants.

In high school, Morrison grabbed a heap of awards, including Gatorade Michigan Player of the Year, and wound up ranked number 28 nationally among high school seniors by All Girl Sports recruiting service.

Before playing Harvard, Morrison was averaging 17.1 points, 8.6 boards and 3.5 blocks per contest and had registered an 11-block game at Hartford. She was named to the All-Tournament Teams at the Seton Hall Classic and Blue Sky Restaurant Classic, is a shoo-in for Ivy Rookie of the Year and is looking more and more like a contender for Ivy Player of the Year.

Against the Crimson, the Morrison machine did not miss a beat. She led all scorers with 32 points on 15-of-19 shooting and pulled down 12 rebounds.

“She keeps the ball high, she squares and just puts the ball over her head and shoots—that’s what all coaches want all post players to do,” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said.

How does Morrison stack up against other players the Crimson have seen?

“She finishes very well,” Tubridy said. “She scored 30 points on us so she’s got to be one of the better post players we’ve played.”

Of the Ivy League’s five Rookie of the Week awards, four have gone to Morrison. The other? That went to teammate Ashley Taylor, who had five points, five boards and five assists against Harvard.

In addition to Morrison’s own production on offense, her interior presence has made her teammates better.

“She brought our focus on defense inside and by that she opened up their shooters and they just lit it up on us tonight,” Tubridy said.

Chief among the ignitors was sophomore forward Jeannie Cullen, who knocked down five treys en route to 22 points.

Cullen, who averages 16 points per game, is also a good ball handler and rebounder, as evidenced by her average of 5.5 boards a game.

“She’s a solid, smart Ivy League player,” Delaney-Smith said.

No player was more solid down the stretch for the Big Green than sophomore Angela Soriaga. It was Soriaga who received the inbounds pass with 4.1 seconds left, dribbled the length of the court, and then swished a game-tying three at the buzzer, and it was Soriaga who scored five points in overtime to lead Dartmouth to victory.

Including freshman guard Fatima Kamara, the Big Green’s top five scorers are all underclassmen.

Dartmouth, which has had quality wins over Big East (Providence) and Big 12 (Kansas) foes, has shown that its youth is not only its future, but also enough power for the present.

The Crimson is still the class of the Ivy League, but it had better look out for the Big Green whippersnappers.

—Staff writer J. Patrick Coyne can be reached at coyne@fas.harvard.edu.