W. Hoops Rally Falls Short as Crimson Loses to Penn

With the score knotted at 72 and 5.8 ticks left on the clock, Penn reserve forward Katie Kilker went to the free throw line for two shots. She missed the first badly, but made the second to push the Quakers past host Harvard, 73-72, Friday night at Lavietes Pavilion.

“We were obviously very disappointed, to be so close in this game and be in control for most of it and then lose it like that, that’s heartbreaking,” co-captain Hana Peljto said.

Just after Penn star forward Jewel Clark fouled out with a little under seven minutes to play, a pair of Kilker free throws granted the Quakers (10-6, 4-0 Ivy) its largest lead of the game, a 67-56 advantage.

The two-headed beast of foul trouble and aggressive Crimson defense limited Clark, who was averaging 20 points and nine rebounds per game, to just nine points and three boards.

“She is their go-to [player], she is their key person,” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said.

The Crimson (8-9, 1-3) was able to quickly capitalize with Penn’s leader on the bench.

After making the first of a one-and-one, sophomore forward Kate Mannering rebounded her miss and dished the ball to co-captain Hana Peljto, who found co-captain Bev Moore spotting up for a three.

Junior center Reka Cserny then went on a personal 7-0 run, with a pair of free throws, a three-pointer and a floating 10-footer from the left side to even the score at 67. Harvard grabbed the lead on its next possession as Peljto banked in a driving layup after pumping mid-air around a Penn defender.

But the Quakers, led by their bench, would not go away. Penn reserve guard Cat Makarewich buried a three-pointer from the top of the arc—her third of the game—to give the Quakers the lead back at 70-69 with 2:15 remaining.

Moore was swift with a response of her own—a three from the left wing that put the Crimson up two with two minutes to play.

“Kathy has kind of been on me to step up and be more of a shooter, because she has a lot of confidence in my shot,” Moore said. “I was really just trying to step up and be confident in my shot and at those key moments someone has to step up and do it.”

The Penn bench, which out-scored Harvard’s reserves 41 to four, again stepped up, with backup forward Monica Naltner leveling the score at 72 with a short jumper in the lane.

On the Crimson’s next chance to take the lead, Pejlto missed a 15-footer along the right baseline and was whistled for a questionable reach-in foul while struggling with Kilker for the rebound.

“It was a bad call,” Delaney-Smith said. “With five seconds to go, you should probably not call that.”

With the Quakers in the double-bonus, Kilker went to the line for her game-winning free throw.

“I definitely thought down the stretch that this was our game we were in control of it, we were going to win it,” Peljto said. “And then we had a tough break at the end, but that’s how basketball goes. It’s a game of runs and the run we wanted couldn’t come at the end for us.”

The loss came despite 23 points from Cserny and 22 from Peljto and Harvard’s 50 percent field-goal percentage.

“I felt like our team chemistry was great in the second half, we were connecting really well,” Moore said. “Even down the stretch at the end I think we felt like we were clicking, but things just weren’t falling for us.”

With three Ivy losses, the Crimson likely must win every remaining game to have a chance at an Ivy League title and invitation to the NCAA tournament.

“We felt a lot of pressure winning games, and every game we said ‘Well this is it’ but really all we need to do is play,” Peljto said. “We just need to have a good time and play. There’s no pressure on us anymore obviously with so many losses.”

Harvard 96, Princeton 62

The Crimson (9-9, 2-3) stormed back Saturday night over the Tigers (5-13, 2-3), winning by 36 points.

“It was awesome,” said junior guard Rochelle Bell. “It was the best game of the season.”

Knowing that it must win out to have a shot at an Ivy title, Harvard came out of the gate firing on all cylinders. Junior guard Katie Murphy swished the game’s first shot, a three from the right wing and Cserny picked up Saturday night where she left off against Penn, scoring 14 points in the game’s first 12 minutes.

A reinvigorated Crimson squad played tough defense, dove for loose balls and drew offensive charges.

“We want to fight the fight, and that’s what we’re doing,” Delaney-Smith said.

Toying with Princeton, Harvard abused the 2-3 zone defense that the Tigers threw at the Crimson, driving the lane and picking it apart with sharpshooting from behind the arc.

During a stretch midway through the first half, Harvard made eight consecutive shots from the field, including four three-pointers. This came in the midst of a 26-6 run that pushed the Crimson lead to 23 and the game out of Princeton’s reach.

“I think we took some pressure off ourselves,” Bell said. “We decided ‘Okay, we’re going to go out, we’re going to have fun.’ We’re the underdog now as opposed to being on top. We kind of have to work our way up there again.”

Harvard exploded for 48 first-half points on 55 percent shooting, including eight of 12 from three-point distance.

“When we’re having fun, it just happens,” Bell said.

The offensive brilliance carried into the second half, with the Crimson dropping another 48 points, this time on 64 percent shooting.

The Harvard attack was well-balanced, with the bench accounting for 40 points and each player contributing. The usual stars of the stat sheet, Cserny and Peljto, did their damage with 23 and 18 points, respectively. Bell scored nine points and added five assists and a career-best seven steals, behind only Allison Feaster ’98 and Cserny, who each swiped eight in their respecitve school record-setting performances.

Sophomores Shana Franklin and Laura Robinson also got in the mix, each adding eight points. Twelve different Crimson players scored, a fact that pleased coach Delaney-Smith.

“That’s what I think this team is all about,” Delaney-Smith said. “That’s what they have to believe.”

Harvard will travel down to Providence Friday to face Brown at 7 p.m. and then go on to New Haven to square off against Yale on Saturday at 7 p.m.

“We know what we can do now,” Bell said. “We just have to bring it.”

—Staff writer J. Patrick Coyne can be reached at coyne@fas.harvard.edu.