W. Cagers Lose Lead

When all was said and done last night in the women's basketball team's 85-71 loss to New Hampshire at Briggs Cage, conventional wisdom regarding the Crimson's play was about as confused as the sentiment expressed in the song serving as background music for one firsthalf time-out-John Cougar's auto repair shop classic "Hurts So Good."

On the one hand, the Crimson (3-12, 0-3) played as well together as a team as it has all season. Rotating well on defense and passing and scoring evenly up and down the roster, Harvard led a scrappy Wildcat team by as much as 13 in the first period, giving the sparse Harvard crowd in attendance several occasions for celebration.

On the other hand, though, when the Crimson fans weren't celebrating, they were shaking their heads in disgust. Harvard was outscored 50-33 in the second half and allowed New Hampshire's 5-2 senior guard Marcie Lane--a previous 20 percent three-point shooter--to nail six treys and garner 29 points on the night.

"Tonight we saw the best of both worlds," Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney Smith said, slightly butchering an otherwise apt cliche. "We played horrible at times and tremendous at other times. It was a confusing game for us."

After falling behind 9-5 in the game's first few minutes, Harvard battled back, taking an 11-9 lead with 12 minutes left in the period. The squads were neck-and-neck for the next five minutes before Crimson tri-captain Cara Frey nailed a three-pointer with four minutes left to put Harvard up 26-20.

The Crimson extended that lead to 37-23 behind a jumpshot and four free throws by tri-captain Butler before New Hampshire battled back. Wildcat forward Kerri Eaton hit a soft in-the-paint jumper and Lane nailed three-pointers to close the gap to three at halftime, 38-35.

But Harvard refused to falter--at least for a few minutes. Crimson sophomore guard Elizabeth Proudfit, coming off of a week of the flu, hit two buckets early in the final half to help Harvard extend the lead to eight, 47-39.

But the rest of the game would be all blue--Wildcat blue, that is. The twin-sister tandem of Marcie and Meaghan Lane destroyed the Harvard defense, driving hard to the bucket when coverage was tight and hitting the jumper when coverage was loose, and the other Wildcats followed their lead. UNH took a 58-55 lead with nine minutes left and never looked back.

"We seemed to collapse after they got the lead," Butler said. "I'd say that we played well for about three quarters of the game--if we just could have put it together for the whole game, we could have had a big win." But a big win was not to be. Instead, the Crimson got its eighth loss in nine outings and an even bigger hole to climb out of with 11 Ivy League clashes remaining.

"This wasn't good for us going into this weekend at Brown and Yale and the rest of the league games after that," Smith said. "We desperately need to get the momentum going again."