Nunley's Heroics Carry Women's Basketball to Road Win Over La Salle

The ball caromed off the back rim and out to the left side of the paint, with bodies diving onto the floor to grab it. Meanwhile, the ball had already rolled out to co-captain Destiny Nunley, who calmly stroked the baseline jumper to give her team a late win, 66-64, over La Salle at Tom Gola Arena.

“I am still a little numb right now,” Nunley said after the game. “I just know we needed a basket, and the ball happened to roll to me, and I picked it up and did what I knew how to do: shoot it.”

Thanks to Nunley’s heroics, which included a team-high 19 points, the Harvard women’s basketball team (13-1) extended its win streak to 13 games and 56 days as it avoided defeat at the hands of an athletic Explorers (9-7) squad. The Texas native sank 9-of-15 field goals and grabbed 12 boards to collect her second double-double of the season.

The evening’s festivities did not start as well as they ended for the visitors, with La Salle’s shooters giving the Crimson a frosty reception despite the warm temperatures in Philadelphia. Explorers guards Adreana Miller and Amy Griffin each scored seven in the first quarter as La Salle raced out to an 18-10 lead, tied for Harvard’s largest first-quarter deficit this year.

Freshman guard Nani Redford injected some much-needed energy into the Crimson’s play early in the second quarter, scoring four straight to cut the lead to three. Harvard continued to struggle with making open shots and even committed five traveling violations in the first half. With the outside shots not falling, the Crimson looked to get the ball inside but was met by the long arms of Explorers senior forward Lisa Mintzer, who collected three blocks on the night.

“We haven’t seen a shot-blocker like her all season, so that took some adjusting to,” Nunley said. “We’re definitely going to see that coming up. Penn has two twin towers, so this was good practice for us. We weren’t ready for that, and they were really athletic.”

Harvard’s offense exploded into life after the intermission, fueled by threes from sophomore guard Madeline Raster and freshman guard Katie Benzan. Nunley began to find her rhythm as well after a difficult first half, hitting all five of her field goals in the third quarter. In all, the Crimson scored 28 points in that frame, the most it has scored in any quarter this season.

“[The key is to] slow down and execute,” coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “When you have a team that is athletic as we are, the tendency is to try harder, go faster when in fact you should do the opposite. They did an excellent job, they switched a lot of screens. [Their coach’s] scout was great on us.”

With 45 seconds left in the third quarter, Boehm spun and banked in a layup, giving Harvard its first lead of the night. La Salle responded with a bucket of its own, tying the game at 50 heading into the fourth quarter.

Miller scored eight of her game-high 27 points in the fourth in response to buckets by sophomore guard Sydney Skinner and Raster. The teams remain deadlocked, Skinner’s layup knotting things up at 62 with just 1:40 left in the game.

Boehm made a key layup to give Harvard the lead with under a minute to play, but then sent Miller to the line on the ensuing possession with a chance to tie the game. Miller sunk both free throws with 36 seconds left.

On the ensuing Crimson possession, Nunley picked up the loose ball off a Raster miss and stroked the 15-foot jumper to give the visitors a two point lead with 1.9 seconds remaining. Griffin missed a wild three-pointer with time expiring, and Harvard’s unbeaten run continued with the remainder of Ivy League play remaining.

—Staff writer Manav Khandelwal can be reached at manav.khandelwal@thecrimson.com.