Hallion Leads Women's Basketball in Weekend Wins

After a six-hour bus ride on Thanksgiving Day, the Harvard women’s basketball team wasn’t about to let a holiday trip to Maine go to waste.

The Crimson won back-to-back games over Maine and Hosftra to win the Dead River Company Classic, and senior co-captain Lindsay Hallion exploded for 39 points in the two games to take home tournament MVP honors.

Harvard (3-2) bounced back from a disappointing 64-49 home loss to Fairfield to snatch a pair of wins over the break and secure its first winning record of the season.

“It’s huge for us,” Hallion said. “We were talking about it and we said that it took us until January to get three wins last year. Our goals are so much higher than our performance was last year, so when we win that’s steps closer to reaching those goals.”

HARVARD 63, HOFSTRA 56

Following Tuesday’s loss to Fairfield, Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith bemoaned her team’s uncharacteristic poor shooting.

Delaney-Smith had nothing to complain about this weekend.

The Crimson shot 55.3 percent from the floor and 50 percent from three-point range en route to a 63-56 come-from-behind win over the Pride on Saturday night.

Harvard trailed Hofstra almost all night until junior guard Emily Tay fired a pass to junior forward Katie Rollins that led to a three-point play with 15:31 remaining in the second half. Rollins sank the free throw to put Harvard up, 37-36, and the Crimson kept the lead for the rest of the game.

“Honestly, I think we just played better [in the second half],” Hallion said. “In the beginning, we battled a little bit of sluggishness. There wasn’t a big crowd—it was kind of quiet. Once we picked up our own intensity, we just played better.”

The Crimson fell behind, 16-6, early in the first half on a 14-2 Hofstra run sparked by three-pointers from Sam Brigham and Natty Fripp. The Crimson committed six turnovers during the offensive drought before an Emma Moretzsohn layup and a quick three from Hallion brought Harvard back to within five.

Harvard played catch-up throughout the first half, with Hallion’s second three-pointer of the night tying the game at 21 with 6:31 left in the opening frame.

“We had surges all night,” Hallion said. “It was a really hard-fought game—it was hard to feel like we were dominating any aspect of it.”

But Hallion and company dominated the second half, scorching the nets with a 63.2-percent field-goal shooting. Tay and Hallion combined for eight points during a 12-2 run that gave the Crimson a 49-38 advantage with 11:44 to play.

Hallion’s last three-pointer—she finished a perfect 3-for-3 beyond the arc—pushed the lead to 12 at 52-40, and the Pride spent the rest of the night clamoring to trim its deficit.

Hallion finished with 19 points on 7-for-10 shooting from the floor.

“Lindsay is so great in every aspect of the game that you kind of expect everything from her,” junior guard Niki Finelli said. “She just played huge this weekend and stepped up for the team. That’s why she’s the leader that she is.”

Tay complemented Hallion with a game-high 20 points on 9-for-15 shooting, including 2-for-2 from beyond the arc, and earned a spot on the All-Tournament team.

Rollins chipped in 14 points in the winning effort.

HARVARD 82, MAINE 78

The Crimson’s star-studded backcourt carried Harvard to a close win over host Maine, as Hallion led the team with 20 points and Finelli added 19 on perfect 3-for-3 shooting from long range.

Tay recorded a career high with 12 assists.

“Our inside game was really strong this weekend, and that opened up things on the perimeter,” Finelli said. “[The forwards] did a good job recognizing when they had the one-on-one and when they should dish it out, and we had a much better offensive balance this weekend.”

Harvard went back-and-forth with the Black Bears throughout, after Maine jumped out to an early 7-2 lead in the game’s first two minutes.

The Crimson didn’t take the lead until the red-hot Hallion—the eventual tournament MVP finished 9-for-10 from the floor—nailed back-to-back jumpers to give Harvard a 19-17 advantage with 8:54 remaining in the first half.

The first half featured five ties and eight lead changes as both teams traded baskets in the final minutes of the opening frame.

The Black Bears built a 26-19 lead on three-pointers from Kris Younan and Emily Rousseau, but the Crimson responded with a 10-0 spurt, capped by Finelli’s three-pointer with 4:47 to go in the half, that gave it a 29-26 lead.

It was Harvard’s hot shooting that kept the squad afloat all night. Maine shot just 39.7 percent from the field, while the Crimson converted 57.4 percent from the floor and 41.7 percent from the three-point land.

“It really gets the momentum going when you’re hitting shots,” Hallion said. “You don’t have to fake the intensity or the excitement when you’re shooting well. It was a huge part of the game for us.”

Harvard opened up a 13-point second half lead on Hallion’s layup with 16:39 to go, and the lead swelled to 70-53 on an Emma Markley jumper with 9:52 left.

But Maine went on a 25-9 tear over the next eight-plus minutes. The Black Bears pulled within one at 79-78 when Rousseau hit a three-pointer with 1:11 to go.

In a fitting conclusion, Hallion iced the game with a jumper to give Harvard an 81-78 cushion.

“We faced some great competition this weekend and came away with two big wins,” Finelli said. “It feels great to come home with a pair of really big wins under our belt.”

—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.