W. Basketball Rallies Past Bears, Stays in Ivy Race

Six teams down, one more to go.

After knocking out its last remaining challenger for Dartmouth’s first-place standing—the now-all-but defunct Brown Bears (16-9, 8-4 Ivy)—the Harvard women’s basketball team (17-7, 9-2) narrowed the Ivy title race to two and cleared the way for a captivating final regular season weekend.

Behind captain Reka Cserny’s 31 points and 13 rebounds—her eighth, and most impressive, double-double of the season—the Crimson dismantled Brown at Providence’s Pizzitola Sports Center, 77-69.

Cserny mesmerized teammates and opposing fans by spearheading Harvard’s 13-5 run in the game’s final 3:41.

“Reka,” said Crimson point guard Jessica Holsey, “had so much fire and passion in her game [on Saturday night].”

On top of her dazzling offensive performance, the center from Budapest, Hungary, added five steals to the stat ledger.

“She did everything she simply could have done,” Holsey said. “She’s, well, awesome.”

Cserny, the Ivy League’s leading scorer, came alive at an appropriate time.

With its ninth win in 10 games, Harvard pulled within one game of Dartmouth, who tripped up against the Bears on Friday night.

With Dartmouth’s win at Yale on Saturday, the Crimson was forced to hold serve against the upstart Bears in order to stay within a game of the Big Green. Holsey said she was not surprised a sufficiently talented Brown team had upset Dartmouth the night before.

“I knew [Dartmouth] had four games before [they played] us,” she said. “Any four of those teams were capable of beating them.”

Harvard shot 51 percent from the field in Providence, and held its opponents to 35.3 percent. Holly Robertson, the 6’5 Brown center who averaged 15 points per game entering the weekend—the second-best total in the Ivy League—finished with only 13 points on 4-of-14 shooting.

“Our guards were really active on her passers,” said Cserny, who defended Robertson in the team’s man-to-man sets. “And she just didn’t get the shots she usually gets.”

The Crimson’s defensive game plan bewitched the Brown centers and forwards, who found the set “just confusing,” Cserny said.

Haunted by the teams’ first match-up—the Crimson fell to Brown 78-63 in Cambridge on Feb. 11 behind a bevy of deep three-pointers from the Bears—Harvard gave ample attention to Brown’s guards.

“We had our hands up so they couldn’t shoot over us,” Cserny said.

Nonetheless, Brown guard Ashley King-Bischof had a career night, pouring 24 points on the Crimson on 10-of-13 shooting.

Most of her damage was done, furthermore, in the waning minutes of the game. She scored 15 points in the game’s final 11 minutes.

The competition was closer than the final score indicated.

Harvard let a 14-point first-half lead slip to a six-point halftime advantage. That lead disintegrated to nothing late in the game.

With 4:34 remaining, Brown took a 64-61 lead on Ashley King-Bischof’s three-pointer.

“Once they got the lead, we adjusted immediately,” Cserny said.

Beginning with a Cserny free throw, Harvard uncorked an 8-0 run—punctuated by a three-pointer by senior guard Katie Murphy, which made the score 69-64.

Forced to foul, Brown watched Harvard convert eight straight free throws to end the game.

“Right now we feel like no one beats us if we play together,” said point guard Laura Robinson, who scored eight points and dished four assists off the bench. “We have energy. We have chemistry.”

“We are so motivated,” added Holsey.

One more Ivy League weekend—against Ivy middle-class denizens Penn and Princeton—beckons.

Harvard’s annual season-ending date with Dartmouth looms a week from tomorrow.

“I don’t think we’re going to let this get away from us,” Holsey said.

“If we win the next three games,” Cserny said, “we’re going to be Ivy champs.”

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.