Strong Defense Spurs W. Basketball

The Harvard women’s basketball team hardly expected Princeton freshman Ali Prichard, a 5’11 forward who had averaged 1.8 points entering the weekend, to drop the long-range hammer so efficiently during Friday night’s game against the Crimson.

With consecutive game-tying, first-half three-pointers—and five total, for 17 points—Prichard may have forfeited her startling designs a little too early.

“She got a little cocky or something,” said Crimson junior forward Kate Mannering. “She was just shooting all left and right.”

After a Prichard three with 8:57 remaining in the first half tied the score at 14, Harvard (18-7, 10-2 Ivy) reacted swiftly, closing out the frame on a 23-10 run and dusting the Tigers (13-13, 5-8) by a score of 71-49 at Lavietes Pavilion Friday night.

“Those are heartbreakers when someone that wasn’t even on our scouting report comes in and hits threes,” Mannering said. “We made some adjustments. And [Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith] got on us. And we had to change. And it worked out for the best.”

Vital to the effort was Harvard point guard Jessica Holsey, the only player on the floor throwing more daggers than Prichard.

The junior from Potomac, Md., scored 23 points on 9-for-14 shooting and handed out eight assists. She matched Pritchard shot-for-shot early in the first half, once scoring 10 points in a row.

The last basket of that streak, a runner from the paint, gave the Crimson the 16-14 lead that it never relinquished.

“I just try to take what they give me,” Holsey said. “[Princeton was] collapsing a lot on the post—and leaving the guards open. It was basically what they were giving us.”

Holsey sliced up the Tigers’ defense with a bevy of silky moves to the basket, a dead eye from long range—she hit both her attempts from three-point distance—and a flair for finding the open scorer when the Tigers collapsed around her.

The Ivy League leader in assists, Holsey dazzled the crowd of 720—including her family, which was in town for Junior Parents’ Weekend—with her passing.

“She had a lot of assists up there today,” Delaney-Smith said. “And that’s good, because I always worry when the families are here.”

After two years marred by shoulder trouble, Holsey has shown significant improvement in 2004-05, both in health and play.

Her sometimes inconsistent scoring totals this season—she entered the weekend averaging 12 points per game, but has had several 20-point efforts—are due principally, Delaney-Smith said, to her superb ability to adapt to game conditions.

“I don’t think she has to be the high scorer,” Delaney-Smith said. “If she’s going to take the shots, she doesn’t want to miss the shots. She’s a player who clearly is just as happy getting the assist as taking the shot.”

Even against a team that gave her plenty of room to operate in the lane, Holsey continued to look for open shooters.

“In fact we tried to isolate for her a lot,” Delaney-Smith said. “And she doesn’t want [us to do that]. She wants to dish. And that’s part of why she’s been streaky as a shooter. Because she doesn’t go at it like a shooter; She goes at it like a passer.”

On the receiving end of two Holsey assists was Mannering, who finished the game with 14 points.

“I was just trying to get open,” Mannering said. “[Especially in] the second half we just really tried to keep our eyes open and look around.”

Captain Reka Cserny and senior guard Katie Murphy spearheaded the Crimson defensive effort with six steals between them, and 24 Princeton turnovers led to 27 Harvard points. Even though the Tigers shot relatively well—they finished 40.4 percent from the field and 41.2 percent from three-point range—they continually fell victim to Crimson deflections and intercepted passes.

“We’re taking chances on steals, rotating, backing each other up,” Delaney-Smith said. “We get motivated now by our defense, and I want to continue to do that.”

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