Athlete of the Week: Hana Peljto `04

On a light weekend of local sports action, 21 points off the bench from freshman forward Hana Peljto in Harvard's non-conference win over Albany were just enough to earn her the Crimson's Athlete of the Week Honors.

Peljto's effort on Monday was hardly her most significant of the season, seeing as it came in a post-exam tune-up, but the way she has upped her game over the exam break speaks loudly for the future potential of this team.

Peljto had a rough day in her first career Ivy loss against Brown. While she did hit a clutch three-pointer in traffic to put the Crimson up one with two minutes left, she struggled with travelling calls and missed the front end of a one-and-one down the stretch. Harvard's dismal 9-of-16 free throw shooting proved to be costly in the 59-57 loss.

The Crimson would not tolerate another disaster from the charity stripe.

"We set some new team goals after break and that was one of them," Peljto said. "We practiced free throws a lot over break, and we definitely achieved that goal."

On Monday, Peljto connected on 8-of-9 from the line. The Crimson as a team shot 22-of-25. As for turnovers, Peljto had just one.

It took just 23 minutes for Peljto to tally her total of 21. All of those points came in the most critical moments of the game, when Harvard was coming back from an early seven-point deficit, and later on putting the game away with an 8-0 run.

Peljto has had her share of big games en route to leading the team with a 14.5 scoring average this season--most notably a 22-point effort at Dartmouth on Jan. 6.

But Peljto can do much better in a Harvard uniform. The potential is there. She is, after all, a former Minnesota player of the year who led her high school team to a state championship with 34 points on two sprained ankles.

Tonight round two of Tennessee vs. UConn will be televised live on ESPN at 7 p.m. If Peljto and the Crimson can come back and take another Ivy title, they may well be watching their future NCAA opponent in prime time.