Women's Basketball Gains Redemption with Victory

When the Harvard women’s basketball team faced Yale at home three weeks ago, two last-minute shots rimmed out for the Crimson in a tough loss. This time around, Harvard left nothing to chance.

The Crimson (13-10, 6-3 Ivy) jumped out to a 16-4 lead over the Bulldogs (15-9, 7-3) and never looked back on its way to a 71-51 victory.

Sophomore Christine Clark led all scorers with 23 points, her best scoring night in three weeks, in which she has recorded four 20-point outings.

“She’s pretty hard to stop on offense,” co-captain Brogan Berry said. “She takes the ball hard to the basket. No matter what team we play against, they have a hard time stopping her. We can always count on her to bring intensity and always attack, and when she drives, it opens things up for everyone else. She’s a phenomenal player.”

Junior Emma Golen contributed a career-high 15 points in the Saturday night win.

“[Golen] was just a leader on the floor,” coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “She was a director of the offense, a scorer.... It may have been her best game all year.”

Though Golen was held to single digits in five of the six last contests, Berry was confident that the junior forward was due for an outburst.

“[Golen was] having a little bit of a slump, but we knew she had it in her,” Berry said. “Sometimes I wish she was a little more selfish because she’s a great player. She had a great overall effort against Yale.”

Golen’s fellow reserve, sophomore Elle Hagedorn, tallied 11 points and nine rebounds Saturday after bringing down nine boards on Friday.

“Elle getting nine rebounds back-to-back is indescribable,” Berry said “She’s a spark for our team.”

Berry herself registered seven assists in the game, becoming the first Ivy League player ever to record 1,300 points and 500 assists in a career. Yet that milestone was only the silver lining for an otherwise sour weekend for Berry. The fourth-year starter shot 2 for 11 against Yale after shooting 2 for 16 the night before against Brown. The cold streak came just one week after Berry registered 47 points over two games.

“It’s been a little frustrating because I think of myself as a consistent player,” Berry said. “I try to take the shots that I think are appropriate during the game, but I have a ton of things I can do during the game. If the shots don’t fall, they don’t fall. It’s a little frustrating, but in the scheme of things, it’s just a shot or two…and you have to play through it.”

The Crimson didn’t need an exceptional scoring night out of Berry though, and it proved it early on. After Harvard took a commanding lead thanks in large part to Clark and Golen, Yale fought to narrow the lead down to five entering halftime, 27-22. Yet it was not able to close the gap further as the Crimson’s lead remained above five for the final 19 minutes of the game.

An and-one conversion by Hagedorn stretched the lead to nine with just over 15 minutes remaining. From there, the two rivals battled back and forth, neither able to significantly change the differential. Then, six Lippert free throws in less than a minute pushed Harvard’s advantage to 16, 56-40. The game was never close again as six more consecutive free throws helped seal the 71-51 victory. On the night, the Crimson got to the line 25 times compared to the Bulldogs’ 10.

A balanced offensive attack combined to shoot 51 percent from the field, and outside of Berry, the rest of the squad made 60 percent of its shots. At the same time, the Harvard defense held Yale to 29-percent shooting from the field and 4-of-18 shooting from deep.

That strong all-around performance came one night after a three-point loss at Brown.

“After the loss on Friday night, we were extremely disappointed,” Berry said. “It wasn’t even about Yale that night; it was about getting back to fundamental Harvard basketball and bringing intensity for the whole 40 minutes. I think Yale definitely was one of our best efforts for the season of playing together and playing with intensity for 40 minutes.”

The 20-point margin of victory is the largest for the Crimson against the Bulldogs since 1997. The win also snapped Harvard’s three-game losing streak against Yale.

—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman can be reached at jacobfeldman@college.harvard.edu.