W. Hoops Routs Big Green in Regular Season Finale, Awaits NCAA Draw

HANOVER, N.H.—The Harvard women’s basketball team wanted to send a resounding message to the NCAA seeding gods with a dominant effort in its Ivy finale last night at Dartmouth, and it did just that in building a 42-15 lead well into the first half. But the Crimson scored just 16 points in the game’s final 22:26 en route to a 58-42 victory.

Harvard (22-5, 13-1) closed out its best Ivy season since the 1996-97 undefeated team at the expense of the Big Green (11-16, 7-7). The Crimson, which clinched the outright Ivy title and an automatic NCAA berth last Friday, will now will await the tournament selection show, which will be broadcast live on ESPN, Sunday at 5 p.m.

Harvard had hoped to enter the tournament with a stronger performance than its 6-for-21 (21.4 percent) shooting effort in the last 20 minutes of its regular season.

“We got the win, that’s important, but obviously we’re disappointed the way we ended the game,” sophomore forward Hana Peljto said.

Peljto led all scorers with 20 points and fell just two short of the school record with a career-high 21 rebounds, but shot just 6-of-23.

Harvard has struggled to hold leads and maintain a high level of intensity in several games this season, and no one can explain why.

“I don’t know what happened,” Peljto said. “If we knew, we would fix it, but we don’t.”

Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith now has the task of righting the wrongs before the Crimson’s first round game, which will be played on either March 15 or March 16.

“We’ll try to fix something this week because this should not have happened,” Delaney-Smith said.

Harvard built its commanding first-half lead on the strength of a 23-1 run, but its pace began to slow at the end of the half as the Big Green scored six points to cut the deficit to 42-21 at intermission.

Harvard still led 50-28 with 10 minutes left, but didn’t scored a field goal for the next five minutes as Dartmouth cut the lead to 51-38.

Freshman center Reka Cserny, who finished with 14 points, 13 rebounds and six steals, carried the team offensively and defensively in the second half. Between a Peljto jumper five minutes into the second half and a Gates layup with 47 seconds left, Cserny was the only Harvard player to score.

It was a far cry from the first half, when Harvard scored on several possessions in a row. The Crimson turned a close 13-10 game into a blowout as senior guard Jenn Monti, Peljto and co-captain Laura Barnard hit treys on three consecutive possessions, bookended by a pair of Sarah Johnson turnaround jumpers. Harvard shot 46.7 percent in the first half.

Peljto led all scorers with 14 in the first half, but her second half slowdown cost her the league’s overall scoring title. At the point when Harvard led 42-15, Peljto had made up a pre-game 498-489 deficit on Dartmouth’s Katharine Hanks in the Ivy scoring race, but Hanks outscored Peljto by eight for the rest of the game.

Neither Peljto nor Delaney-Smith were aware of the closeness of the scoring race. Peljto, in particular, has never been one to care about statistics.

“That doesn’t matter,” Peljto said of the scoring title. “I would rather have the Ivy league title.”

Another factor contributing to Peljto’s second-half struggles was the officiating. Peljto earned only six shots from the line despite attempting 23 field goals, on many of which she was hacked. Hanks earned eight shots from the line, but took just 14 shots from the floor.

Hanks also benefited from being Dartmouth’s only major inside threat. Harvard typically spread around its scoring and won more games handily than Dartmouth did, which generally meant less pressure for Peljto to score.

Hanks scored 19 of Dartmouth’s 42 points. Her team shot 24.6 percent, making it impossible for the Big Green to catch the Crimson. The team minus Hanks shot just 19.1 percent.

The last time the two teams met, Dartmouth burned Harvard with three-point shots, led by Keri Downs, who hit five in one half. But the Big Green shot 0-for-8 from behind the arc this time around.

The defensive performance—Harvard’s best of the year—gave the team something to be happy about entering the NCAAs.

Now the next big event for the Crimson will be watching its name appear on Sunday’s selection show. It will be a new experience for all the players.

“I’m very excited,” Peljto said. “I’ve obviously never been involved in the process, so I’m looking forward to it.”