Fooled by Fairfield

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me four times on my home floor, shame on me.

A number of second-chance opportunities helped Fairfield (1-2) beat the Harvard women’s basketball team (2-2) 71-58 in the Crimson’s home opener on Sunday afternoon in Cambridge, dropping the Crimson to 0-4 all-time against the Stags at Lavietes Pavilion.

Fairfield won the battle on the glass, outrebounding Harvard 43-40, and that helped generate points on the offensive end. The Stags more than doubled Harvard in second-chance points, posting 16 compared to the Crimson’s seven.

“They just owned us on the boards,” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “We should be ashamed.”

After trading baskets for the first 13 minutes after halftime, Harvard took its first lead since a 27-26 mark with about two minutes left in the first half on a free throw from sophomore guard Lindsay Hallion, making the score 54-53 with 6:47 to play.

After two Stag field goals made the score 57-54, a scoop down low from senior point guard Laura Robinson, who finished the game with 18 points, made it 57-56. Following a steal and a timeout from junior forward Christiana Lackner with 5:09 left, Harvard had the ball and a chance to regain the lead, but a 6-0 Fairfield run with two minutes to go put the game out of reach for the Crimson. During the run, the Stags capitalized on each of Harvard’s achilles heels—second-chance points, trips to the free throw line, and lack of help defense.

Despite a first half that saw the Crimson win the rebounding battle, Fairfield still held on to a 31-27 lead at the intermission. Robinson was perfect from the field in the first half, hitting on all five of her field-goal attempts en route to 12 points in the first 20 minutes to lead all scorers. The first half also saw co-captain forward Maureen McCaffery grab 10 rebounds, and although she pulled down just two more in the second frame, she did finish with 13 points and her first career double-double.

Still, the personal achievement didn’t make up for the lack of toughness shown by the team.

“They were tougher tonight,” McCaffery said. “It was our home opener, and we should have come out a lot stronger and ready to play. We just weren’t here in the second half. We started out strong and then just kind of fell apart.”

The Stags also proved to be the stronger team offensively, as illustrated by the disparity in free throws. Although Fairfield only shot 61.5 percent from the line, their 26 attempts nearly quadrupled Harvard’s output—seven—and that contributed to the Crimson’s demise, especially in a hotly contested second half.

“It looked to me like they wanted it more than we did,” Delaney-Smith said. “We did a lot of standing around, and I don’t think we were physically very tough. We were not mentally very tough either.”

“They were getting a lot of push under the basket, and we need to learn to push back,” McCaffery said. “We’re playing horrible help defense right now, and I’m really going to work on that. All the forwards are going to have to work on that.”

The offense didn’t help the cause yesterday, as the Crimson shot just 38.3 percent from the field. Co-captain Jessica Holsey, who led Harvard in scoring in the team’s two wins this year, went 0-for-8 from the field and scored zero points in 27 minutes of work. If the Crimson wants to avoid falling below .500 this Saturday against Virginia, it will have to get tougher, both offensively and defensively.

“We’re pretty disappointed with that effort,” Delaney-Smith said. “We’re disappointed with the home opener, and that never should have happened. We played below our ability today.”