Big Green Rolls Past W. Cagers

Last Saturday, the Harvard women's basketball team took its .500 record up to Hanover, N.H., to open its Ivy League schedule against archrival Dartmouth. But the Crimson found out quickly that the road to a title will be a long and challenging one.

Harvard (5-6 overall, 0-1 Ivy) has given its fans reason to cheer throughout the season, putting a young, exciting squad with deadly outside-shooting capability out on the court. But sloppy play and weak board work once again plagued the team, as the Big Green rolled to a 69-51 victory.

"It was a frustrating game," sophomore guard Maura Healy said. "Basically, we beat ourselves."

Harvard stuck with Dartmouth for the first nine minutes of the first half, but then the turnovers started--and they kept coming. Dartmouth employed a trapping defense that disrupted the flow of the Crimsonoffense, and the three-point shot, normally adevastating weapon for the Crimson, was not there."I think we let their defense get to us," juniorforward Jen Mazanec said. "We didn't adjust well."

Harvard converted on only 33 percent of itsshots from behind the arc, well below its seasonaverage, and coughed the ball up an astounding 34 times.

"The mistakes we made were all mentalmistakes," Healy said. "We just didn't execute."

The Crimson headed for the locker room athalftime faced with a 14-point deficit, but theteam regrouped, cutting the lead down to six earlyin the second half. However, Dartmouth's SophiaNealy then sunk a few baskets to ignite the BigGreen Machine and lead it to victory. Nealyfinished the game with a team-high 15 points,while Alison Greene and Ute Omen added 14 and 13points respectively.

For Harvard, Mazanec provided most of theoffense, pumping in a game-high 18 points. Seniorforward Jody Fink added nine points in the paintand pulled down 11 rebounds. Junior guard BethWambach, suffering from a pinched nerve in herfoot, was able to play but was clearly hampered bythe injury, scoring only six points.

Harvard outshot Dartmouth from the field, butthe Crimson grabbed only 30 rebounds to the BigGreen's 48. The void on the boards was onlyexacerbated by the turnovers, as Dartmouth hoistedup 27 more shots than the Crimson did.

"We gave them second, third and fourth shots,"Healy said. "Hopefully, we have our worst gamebehind us."

Harvard continues its Ivy League schedule withback-to-back road games against Cornell andColumbia this Friday and Saturday.

"They're definitely not going to be easy,"Mazanec said. "But this week of practice should begood for us.