HANOVER — Cliché as it is, there’s a reason basketball coaches often reinforce the importance of playing a complete 40 minutes. 

The Dartmouth College women’s basketball team, plagued by a quarter of poor play once more, dropped its game against UMass, 67-56, on Sunday. The Big Green held a 3-point lead entering the fourth quarter, but were blitzed with a 7-0 run early in the period and never recovered. Dartmouth was ultimately outscored 25-11 in the final stanza.

Currently amid a five-game, 10-day stretch that began on Dec. 1 against New Hampshire and concluded Tuesday night against Stonehill, Big Green coach Linda Cimino said exhaustion certainly played a factor in the fourth-quarter spiral. But so too did poor shot selection and a lack of communication.

“I thought we executed really well in the first half,” Cimino said. “Then in the second half, we didn’t make adjustments to their defensive adjustments. … But the best part about (Sunday) is that we have a quick turnaround and we get right back at it on Tuesday.”

Dartmouth’s first-half success largely boiled down to the re-emergence of junior big Clare Meyer, whose interior scoring presence allows the team to play inside-out on the offensive side of the floor. The 6-foot-3 forward poured in a team-high eight points in the first half, paving the way for a 34-point scoring output for the Big Green. 

Meyer averaged 11.3 points per game through the Big Green’s first three contests, but saw her offensive output dip over the last four games, mired by inefficiency — she was shooting 14.3% from the floor in that stretch.

Ahead of the game against the Minutewomen, Meyer was coming off a 1-of-11 shooting performance in a 3-point loss to Bucknell. She had played just 15 minutes and missed all three of her shot attempts in Dartmouth’s 61-58 overtime victory over Navy last Wednesday, too.

“It was great to regain my confidence,” said Meyer, who finished the game with 12 points, two boards and two assists. “The last couple of games have been tough, but the team has helped me get through it.”

As Cimino put it, when Meyer is scoring inside, the opposing defense collapses, opening up perimeter scoring opportunities for the team’s guards. Sophomore Nina Minicozzi and first-year Tahira Muhammad were the main backcourt benefactors, combining for 11 points off the bench in the second quarter.

Still, despite the manner in which Dartmouth lost its game to UMass — lapses in defensive communication, a woeful 36.4% fourth-quarter shooting clip and five turnovers precipitating its collapse — Cimino maintained that it’s all correctable.

Playing games in such quick succession also allows the team to flush the result and move on, a point that Meyer and Minicozzi echoed postgame.

“Obviously, losing (Sunday) sucked, but now we get to come out and play another game,” Minicozzi said. “We’re hungry to win and we;re hungry to prove ourselves.

That hunger is part of the culture change Cimino, now in her second year in Hanover, has been trying to instill. The Big Green (3-5) have four games remaining, including Tuesday’s bout with Stonehill, before the holiday break. 

“These kids are competitive and they know how to win,” Cimino said, referencing a couple program newcomers in Muhammad and fellow-first year Olivia Austin. “We hope that competitiveness starts to be contagious with other people. Our future is bright. We’re going to stay positive and we’re going to continue to learn, grow and build.”

Here’s how Dartmouth’s other sports programs fared this past week.

Men’s ice hockey drops pair of home games

No. 13 Dartmouth dropped two consecutive home games for the first time since February 2023 this past weekend. The Big Green’s two losses also marked the team’s first two defeats in ECAC play this season. 

Welcoming St. Lawrence to Thompson Arena on Friday, Dartmouth conceded a first-period goal before freshman Hayden Stavroff level the scoreline, 1-1, early in the second frame. When the Saints reclaimed their one-goal advantage, it was sophomore CJ Foley who equalized for the Big Green. But after surrendering yet another early-period goal, Dartmouth — which was unable to convert on either of its two power plays in the third stanza — couldn’t find a third equalizer, falling to St. Lawrence, 3-2. 

The Big Green’s scoreline on Saturday against No. 20 Clarkson mirrored the previous game’s events. Coach Reid Cashman’s squad found two equalizing finishes in the first and second periods once again, but a third goal in the final frame saw the Golden Knights emerge with a victory, 3-2. 

Dartmouth will host New Hampshire at Thompson Arena on Friday before the holiday break commences. 

Men’s basketball splits two games

It was a tale of two 10-minute periods for Dartmouth in its game against Granite State rival New Hampshire last Tuesday. The Big Green raced out to a 25-11 lead midway through the first frame before a 9-minute field goal drought allowed the Wildcats to chip away at their double-digit deficit. 

After entering the intermission knotted at 32-32, Dartmouth ripped off a 16-4 run early in the second half to reclaim a significant lead. But UNH once again clawed back, shrinking the lead to a single possession in the final minute of regulation. Big Green senior guard Ryan Cornish would ice the game from the charity stripe, though, securing a second consecutive road win for coach David McLaughlin’s squad.

The victory against the Wildcats marked the program’s second consecutive road victory, the first time that’s happened since the 2021-22 campaign. Dartmouth very nearly made it three consecutive wins on Sunday in Chicago, but fell to UIC, 69-68, in overtime.

The Big Green had the ball for the final possession, but junior forward Jackson Munro’s shot caromed off the back iron as the Flames escaped with a victory. 

Dartmouth (4-4) will face its second ACC foe of the season, Notre Dame (5-5), on Wednesday in South Bend, Ind., before returning to the Northeast for a game at UMass Lowell (6-4) on Saturday.

Women’s ice hockey remains winless

Dartmouth played a pair of top-15 programs over the weekend, traveling to face No. 6 Clarkson and No. 11 St. Lawrence ahead of the holiday respite.

The Big Green erased a 3-1 deficit to level the score against the Golden Knights on Friday. Senior Laura Fuoco, making her 100th appearance in the green and white of Dartmouth, provided the equalizer on a power play four minutes into the final stanza. But Clarkson had a quick response, reclaiming a lead it would never relinquish just three minutes later. The Golden Knights would tack on an empty net goal to secure a victory, 5-3, over coach Maura Crowell’s squad.

The Big Green conceded an early goal in the second period against St. Lawrence on Saturday and were unable to find an equalizing score. The Saints added an empty net tally in the third period to claim a 2-0 win, marking the fourth time Dartmouth has been shut out this season.

The Big Green will not return to the ice until Dec. 30 when they travel to Durham, N.H., to face UNH. Dartmouth (0-14, 0-10 ECAC) is still searching for its first win of the season.

Squash hosts Harvard, Amherst and Virginia

It was a busy week for Dartmouth’s men’s and women’s squash programs, welcoming Harvard, Amherst and Virginia to Hanover to cap a four-game homestand. 

The Big Green women, ranked 11th nationally, picked up their lone win of the week on Friday, knocking off No. 15 Amherst, 7-2. Dartmouth earned victories at the top three positions and cruised to a win behind a quartet of 3-0 sweeps from Maria Clara Ramirez, Aubrey Lennon, Kriti Muthu and Nathalie Taylor. The Big Green were blanked, 9-0, by top-ranked Harvard and No. 6 Virginia. Those two losses pushed Dartmouth to 2-2 entering the holiday break. 

The Big Green men, meanwhile, similarly routed Amherst and dropped games to Harvard and Virginia. Dartmouth, ranked 12th nationally, picked up five 3-0 sweeps against Amherst to secure its second win of the season. Facing No. 6 Virginia, the Big Green picked up wins at three of the top four positions, but were unable to get much else down the lineup. Just like the women’s squad, the Dartmouth men’s team heads into the winter break with a 2-2 record.

Indoor track and field opens season

Dartmouth competed in a pair of meets in Boston, Mass., over the weekend to begin the indoor track and field season.

Senior Madeleine Locher, a second-team All-Ivy selection in the fall on the cross country team, posted a finish of 15 minutes, 45 seconds in the 5000-meter at the Sharon Colyear-Danville meet. That mark places her in the top-20 nationally among other Division-I runners, according to dartmouthsports.com.

Junior Colton McMaster had a good weekend as well competing at the Ivy vs. HBCU Challenge held at Harvard. McMaster notched a first-place finish in the weight throw and placed second in the shot put.

Alex Cervantes can be reached at acervantes@vnews.com or 603-727-7302.