Women's Basketball Looks to Improve in Second Straight Dartmouth Game

After two weeks free of intercollegiate obligations, the Harvard women’s basketball team looks to pick up right where it left off.

On Jan. 12, the Crimson opened up Ivy League play with a comprehensive win over Dartmouth, 88-66, at Lavietes Pavilion. This Saturday, Harvard hopes for a similar result in Hanover.

“We’re dying to play,” Crimson coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “I would guess the same with Dartmouth. The two week break isn’t ideal, so we’re pretty excited to be playing.”

Harvard will be seeking its seventh straight win over the Big Green. The Crimson (10-5, 1-0 Ivy) heads into Saturday’s matchup tied with Princeton for the Ivy League’s best overall record. Dartmouth (2-13, 0-1 Ivy) is tied with Columbia for the conference’s worst.

“Their program is kind of in the rebuilding stages, but the Harvard-Dartmouth rivalry goes back so many years,” junior guard Christine Clark said. “It’s always a competitive game, and we always have to be on our best game to beat them.”

In Harvard’s last outing against Dartmouth, the Crimson jumped out to a 16-point advantage in the first half and extended the lead in the second. Clark and senior forward Victoria Lippert led all scorers with 22 and 19 points, respectively.

“Both [Lippert] and I really took what the defense gave us,” Clark said. “And we just had great team offense, working the ball around, which opened [Lippert and me] up for drives and pull-ups.”

For the third time this season, Clark earned Ivy League Player of the Week honors. She currently leads all Ivy scorers with 16.9 points per game.

The Crimson’s reserves also put up big numbers against the Big Green as Harvard’s bench combined for 37 points. In just eight minutes on the floor, freshman guard Shilpa Tummala contributed a career-high 10 points as she shot 4-for-4 from the field.

“It doesn’t surprise me when [Tummala] comes in and shoots 4-for-4,” Delaney-Smith said. “She’s capable of that.”

The freshman has begun to show improvements on the court as she continues to rehab a shoulder injury that she sustained in high school.

On Saturday, the Crimson will try to contain sharp-shooting senior guard Faziah Steen, who led all Dartmouth scorers with 18 points and recorded a game-high five steals two weeks ago at Lavietes. Steen is the sole senior on a young Big Green squad.

“She’s one of the better players in the league,” Delaney-Smith said of Steen. “We could have done a better job on her. She’s fast, she’s grown, and she’s always been a tremendous shooter, and now she’s taking it to the hole pretty well, so we’ve got to adjust.”

Steen will share the backcourt duties with junior point guard Nicola Zimmer, who was out with a knee injury two weeks ago. Steen, Zimmer, and junior Eve Zelinger are Dartmouth’s only upperclassmen.

Freshman forward Lakin Roland led Dartmouth’s underclassmen corps two weeks ago, coming off the bench to score 13 points. Sophomores Tia Dawson and Abbey Schmitt may also challenge Harvard’s backcourt tomorrow.

“I think that on a given night, they’ve got players that are up and down. Anyone can do anything,” Delaney-Smith said. “I think Tia Dawson is one of the more challenging players in the league, so we have to pay attention to her. But they’re sort of having an inconsistent year.”

Tomorrow will mark the second time in Delaney-Smith’s coaching tenure the Crimson has played the same opponent in back-to-back games. In January 2008, Harvard also opened up the Ivy League season with two games against Dartmouth.

“There’s more familiarity,” Delaney-Smith said about playing Dartmouth in consecutive games. “The scout is much easier.”

Saturday is the first of a three-game road stand for Harvard. The Crimson will travel to New Haven and Providence next weekend to meet two new Ivy rivals. In Hanover, Harvard will focus on defensive details against a familiar opponent.

“Scoring 88 points in a game, you should be able to beat most teams when you can score that much, so our focus [these two weeks] was defense,” Delaney-Smith said. “We found some areas where we have to make some adjustments.”

Clark agreed that her team has issues it needs to begin to address.

“We need to keep improving on defense and rebounds,” Clark added. “I think we can improve on what we did last game; that’s kind of our goal, beyond winning.”

—Staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at mledecky@college.harvard.edu.