Princeton Women’s Basketball Ends Perfect Season in Round Two of NCAA Tournament

The Princeton University women’s basketball team saw its pursuit of perfection come to an end on Monday night with an 85-70 loss to top-seeded Maryland in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in College Park, Maryland.

Princeton was behind by just four points at the half. But then Maryland used a 20-4 run over the first 7:02 of the second half to widen the gap.

Advancing to its seventh sweet 16 under head coach Brenda Frese, Maryland improved to 32-2 on the season while extending its win streak to 26 games.

Closing out the year with an Ivy League record 31-1 mark, Princeton ended a historic season. The Tigers’ No. 13 ranking in both the Associated Press Top-25 and USA Today Coaches polls are the highest in conference history. Princeton’s No. 8 seed is the best an Ivy program has ever earned, and the Tigers’ first round win over Green Bay was just the second NCAA victory for an Ivy team.

Princeton senior co-captain Blake Dietrick scored a team-high 26 points. Ranked 11th on the Tigers’ all-time scoring list  with 1,233 points, Dietrick’s 210 career three-pointers are third in Princeton women’s basketball history, while her 346 assists are fourth.

Vanessa Smith finished with 15 points, while Alex Wheatley had 10 points and three rebounds. Annie Tarakchian upped her season total to 300 points, setting a new single-season program record.