W. Cagers Try to Salvage Second As Big Green Rolls in for Ivy Season Finale

The Harvard women's basketball team is still grieving from Saturday night's heartbreaking loss to Brown.

But the Crimson will not be allowed to mourn for long.

Tonight, Dartmouth invades Briggs Cage like a relentless, loudmouthed, plaid-coated, vacuum-cleaner salesman pounding on the door of a bereaved family.

The caller won't take no for an answer and isn't satisfied with having beaten Harvard once this season, 74-55.

This interloper wants more

Dartmouth (16-9 overall, 9-4 Ivy) wants to share second place with the Crimson (13-12, 10-3).

Well there's only one thing to do with such a brash, meddlesome pest: slam the door.

Harvard intends to avenge both its losses to Brown and Dartmouth in the final game of the year.

"We want to bury Dartmouth," Co-captain Maura Healey said after the Brown game.

In order to do this, the Crimson must stop the Big Green's well-balanced attack.

Junior, guard Renee Reed, who leads the team with 13 points per game, can effectively penetrate as well as shoot from outside.

Freshman Brandi Jones and sophomore Ilsa Webeck control the low post, combining for 12.3 rebounds and 19.7 points per game. Webeck has also blocked 34 shots on the season.

This was supposed be the game in which Harvard would seize its second straight Ancient Eight title.

The Crimson was supposed to beat Brown on Saturday, and then dispatch Dartmouth to force a tie for the championship.

It didn't happen.

But Brown knows how it feels to come in second place. The bears have finished second the last two years.

"I feel so great," Brown Captain Shonica Tunstall said. "I feel like I've been waiting for this so long. We finally did it."

Tunstall finally got a championship ring in her senior year.

"We did it for Shonica," Brown sophomore guard Michelle Pagliaro said. "Shonica leads by example. I remember when she went down in the pre-season with a sprained ankle.

"We were pratically in tears when the doctor told us she'd be out for eight weeks. But she came back. She's incredible."

Harvard's Captain, Healey, just missed sharing the title with Tunstall. After the game the two captains hugged.

"You want to end your career with a championship," Healey reflected. "But [senior] Heather [Harris] and I got ours last year."

Not everyone at Briggs Cage was as charitable as Healey.

The Brown fans came out in force and gave the Crimson fits all night. They seemed more like Duke fans actually.

Whenever the Harvard guards would touch the ball, the Brown crowd would hum, "Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh."

Several times during the night they broke into choruses of "Aiir-ball, Air-ball," and with the game well in hand, they crooned an old basketball favorite: "Na-Na-Na-Na...Hey, Hey, Goodbye!"

Looking on in amusement were two reporters from the BBC, who were shooting a documentary.

"We're just filming around Boston and Harvard's a part of Boston so we thought we'd stop by," correspondent Brian Davis said. "I like this game. It's very exciting."