Wins on the road are hard to come by and this weekend was no exception for the women’s basketball team.

The Elis struggled against two of the top teams in the conference, falling short first against Dartmouth on Friday and then against Harvard on Saturday. The two losses leave the Bulldogs (4-17, 1-7 Ivy) with an 0-8 away record.

The Elis opened the weekend with a 59-39 loss to league-leading Dartmouth (10-8, 6-0). Forward Ashley Taylor led the Big Green with 19 points, while center Elise Morrison pulled down 13 rebounds. For the Bulldogs, captain Morgan Richards ’05 had eight points and three assists. Eli center Erica Davis ’07 grabbed nine rebounds and Julie Mantilla ’07 blocked four shots.

“Dartmouth was a relatively competitive experience,” Eli center Erica Davis ’07 said. “We weren’t playing our best, but neither were they. We had a chance to make a comeback and win until the last several minutes of the game. This was just another painful example of a lack of true effort on our part.”

Trouble started early for the Elis. After they jumped out to a 4-2 lead in the opening minutes of the game on a basket from forward Sara McCollum ’08, the Big Green responded with a 10-0 run to go ahead for good.

Dartmouth had a 25-17 lead at halftime and pulled away with a 21-6 second-half run to go up 50-27 with six minutes left in regulation. Eli guard Kaitlin Emmerling ’07 ended the Dartmouth run with a three-pointer, but it was too late for the Elis to recover from the double-digit deficit.

On Saturday night, the Bulldogs faced the Crimson (13-7, 5-2) at Lavietes Pavilion and ran into much tougher opposition, dropping the game, 90-55.

“I think we played very poorly against Harvard,” forward Lindsay Page ’05 said. “Everyone on the team is at a loss of words right now. We’ve been trying so many things in practice but nothing seems to click when we’re on the court.”

Eli guard Tory Mauseth ’05 became Yale’s leading career three-point shooter after hitting her second of three for the night with 4:55 remaining in the first half. Davis led the Bulldogs with 16 points and McCollum collected a career-high 13 points, two steals, and a block.

Harvard guard Jessica Holsey scored a game-high 21 points for the Crimson and forward Reka Cserny added another 16 points and six rebounds.

Holsey scored the first eight points for Harvard as the Cantabs broke out to an early 14-4 lead. Shortly afterwards the Crimson pulled away with a 13-0 run to take a 29-6 lead before finishing the first half with a 46-25 advantage.

Harvard did not let up in the second half, scoring another 13-0 run for a 65-29 lead. Davis triggered a small run for the Bulldogs by scoring seven unanswered points on a three-point play, but Harvard slowly pulled away for the remainder of the game.

“It is clearly more of a comfortable situation to play at home,” Mantilla said. “We should get wins no matter if we’re in [John J. Lee Amphitheater] or if we’re in another team’s gym. Ultimately it’s just about showing up, no matter where you’re playing.”

The Elis are now setting their focus on breaking their dry spell on the road before traveling to Princeton on Friday and Pennsylvania on Saturday.