Nov 29, 2017 4 min read

For most college basketball teams, November is a month dedicated to fattening the won-lost record by playing nonconference games against opponents that would have trouble beating Our Lady of Consecutive Defeats and to keeping tab of league opponents from afar, through newspapers and websites.

However, in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference, where each member plays 18 league games, there is no time for easing into a season. Important conference games are often scheduled for November.

The Washington & Jefferson women’s team found itself with one such game Wednesday night against Saint Vincent. The Presidents and Bearcats are usually among the top teams in the PAC and seemingly run into one another annually in the PAC tournament semifinals. That’s where Saint Vincent ended W&J’s run last season.

This time, an experienced W&J team with an instant-impact freshman made an early statement in the PAC with an impressive 70-56 victory over the Bearcats at Henry Memorial Center.

The win moved W&J to 2-0 in the conference and 5-0 overall.

“To be honest, I don’t have a feeling about it one way or another,” W&J coach Jina DeRubbo said of playing conference games in November.

“We have to get all our games in and if we don’t play now, then we’d have to play three conference games in a week later in the season, which I don’t prefer. This year, we have four seniors and a very experienced point guard, so it probably doesn’t bother us as much.”

It also helps that W&J has a talented freshman guard in Lauren Gilbert out of Baldwin High School. Gilbert scored a game-high 26 points, making seven of 11 three-pointers. Gilbert upped her scoring average to a team-leading 19.2 and is shooting 54 percent from the field and 48 percent from three-point range. She’s also proving that all the hard work done on the recruiting trail by W&J assistant coach Maeve Gallagher, who recruited Gilbert like she was recruiting the next LeBron James, was well worth the effort.

“Lauren has been fantastic every game,” DeRubbo said. “She’s been putting up big numbers and sometimes you forget that she’s making freshman mistakes out there because she’s scoring 20 points a game. She has edge to her and plays with energy. One of the best things about her is she’s a team player.”

Gilbert was too much for Saint Vincent. She started the game with a three-pointer only five seconds after the opening tipoff, made another less than three minutes later and added a third that gave W&J an early 14-5 lead. Saint Vincent (1-1, 2-3) never got closer than three points the rest of the way as W&J received solid performances by its upperclassmen.

Junior forward Danielle Parker scored 16 points and senior point guard Amirah Moore contributed 13 points, six assists and four steals.

“This year, I like playing the conference games early,” Moore said. “I felt our team was ready to play other teams when we started with our scrimmages. … It’s nice to play a good conference team early because you’re either going to start off with a good record or find out what you need to work on.”

If something has been troublesome for W&J during the 5-0 start it has been foul trouble, especially among its forwards. The Presidents, however, have been able to work around the fouls. Saint Vincent wasn’t able to take advantage of some early lopsided foul totals as the Bearcats made only eight of 17 free throws in the game, hurting their chances of a comeback.

W&J led 17-14 after one quarter, 33-24 at halftime and 48-35 after three quarters. Saint Vincent was within 10 points early in the fourth quarter before Parker put in a shot from the side of the lane and Gilbert was inexplicably left unguarded on consecutive possessions as she made two three-pointers to make it 56-38 and end any Saint Vincent comeback thoughts.

Moore said she’s already noticed a difference in the W&J offense with Gilbert on the court.

“Lauren has been an amazing addition to our team,” Moore said. “Last year, we struggled at times scoring from three-point range, which made it hard to get the ball inside to the post. Her shooting opens it up for our inside people and it has opened up driving lines to the basket.”

Kiara Arnold came off the bench to score 11 points to lead Saint Vincent.