Peljto’s Career-High 36 Lifts W. Hoops Over Big Green

Led by a career-high 36 points from sophomore forward Hana Peljto, the Harvard women’s basketball team overcame Dartmouth 88-77 in front of 1,727 fans at Lavietes Pavillion Saturday night to open the Ivy League season.

Peljto’s performance helped the Crimson (9-4, 1-0 Ivy) counter every Big Green run, as Harvard won its seventh consecutive Ivy opener.

“The game was, we maintained our poise and did something extra every time to get our momentum back,” said Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith.

With 5:51 remaining in the game, the Crimson needed a run badly. After holding a lead that hovered around 10 for the majority of the second half, a 7-0 run by Dartmouth (4-7, 0-1) closed the gap to just four points, 76-72, on a rainbow three-pointer from Big Green sophomore guard Courtney Lewis.

Harvard answered on the next play, when Harvard’s smallest player, 5’6 senior point guard Jenn Monti, grabbed an offensive rebound and put the ball back in for two.

After a Dartmouth timeout and a missed free throw by Lewis on the front end of a one-and-one, sophomore forward Tricia Tubridy drained a trey off an assist from Monti. The basket gave the Crimson a 81-72 lead with 4:14 remaining, and Dartmouth would not come closer than seven points for the rest of the game.

“There were shifts of momentum,” Monti said. “We’d give up six points, and we’d be right back with them. I think that is characteristic of this team that we didn’t fold when there was pressure to come back.”

Harvard raced out to a 44-32 halftime lead behind 23 points from Peljto in an incredible first-half performance.

At the break, Peljto was just five points shy of her career high of 28, set this season in Harvard’s 86-82 win over Rhode Island on Dec. 11.

Peljto was 7-of-12 from the field, including 3-of-4 from behind the arc, in a half that saw her get quite a few open looks.

Peljto scored the Crimson’s final 12 points before intermission as well as its first five after the break for a 17-point run.

“My teammates found me open, and I hit my shots,” Peljto said. “I didn’t even realize that it was that many [points].”

Including Peljto, whose 20.6 points-per-game was the second highest average in the league entering the game, Harvard and Dartmouth combined to have four of the league’s top five scorers entering the contest.

Dartmouth forward Katharine Hanks, the Ivy League’s leading scorer, posted 16 points before being helped off the court after an injury with 8:50 left in the game.

Big Green junior guard Keri Downs struggled early, missing all five shots from the field in the first half. In the second half, though, Downs returned to form, scoring 18 points, 15 coming on three-point shots.

“She’s come on so much stronger this year,” Monti said. “We knew that she was going to be their go-to when Katharine went down.”

One facet of the game that Delaney-Smith was very pleased with was the team’s rebounding. After picking up only eight offensive rebounds against Manhattan on Wednesday, the Crimson grabbed 21 against the Big Green and claimed the overall rebounding advantage, 44-30.

Peljto and Tubridy posted 11 rebounds each, and both had more offensive than defensive boards.

“[The rebounding] is what I think did it for us if I could pick one part of the game,” Delaney-Smith said.

Cserny and Monti chipped in 15 points apiece, while Monti also dished out 10 assists. Junior forward Sarah Johnson added 11 points for the Crimson.

Next Harvard will travel to Princeton on Friday and Penn on Saturday. The Tigers, last year’s Ivy cellar team, stunned the defending Ivy champion Quakers, 66-56, at the Palestra on Friday.