W. Hoopsters Slip Again; Title Almost Gone

ITHACA, N.Y.--If the fat lady has not sung for the Harvard women's basketball team's season, she is certainly warming the pipes.

Harvard (8-12, 5-4 Ivy) split a pair of games versus New York foes this weekend, handily defeating Columbia (4-17, 1-9) 75-62 on Friday night before stumbling against Cornell (9-13, 3-7) 81-74 on Saturday. HARVARD  75 COLUMBIA  62 HARVARD  74 CORNELL  81

The Crimson's loss to the Big Red may have been the death blow in its run for a fourth consecutive Ivy League title, as first-place Princeton (13-8, 8-1) and Dartmouth (15-6, 8-1) now lead Harvard by three games.

"We're not giving up the ship," said Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. "This just makes it that much more difficult. A three-way tie with four losses each--that would be a hoot."

Senior center Rose Janowski continued her strong play of late, tallying 27 points, 17 rebounds, seven assists and two blocks on the weekend. Freshman guard Katie Gates also turned in good performances with 23 points and 13 rebounds in the two games.

Cornell 81, Harvard 74

On the second night of a road doubleheader, a flu-ridden Harvard team did not have enough steam to keep up with Cornell for 40 minutes and dropped an 81-74 decision at Newman Arena.

The Crimson looked sharp in the first half, shooting 43 percent from the floor--including 7-of-16 three-pointers--to take a 39-33 lead into halftime.

Harvard scored the first three points of the second half on a lay-up by junior guard Courtney Egelhoff and a free throw by Janowski to open a nine-point lead. But four minutes into the period, Harvard went cold on offense and relaxed on defense, and Cornell took full advantage.

Beginning with a short jumper by sophomore forward Jennifer Linker at the 16:00 mark, the Big Red exploded on a 24-5 run to open a 10-point lead that it sat on until the final buzzer.

"[Cornell] shot very well," Delaney-Smith said. "We didn't get any second shots, and that's where I thought there was no heart and no effort."

Cornell was capitalizing on all of Harvard's miscues, scorching the Crimson on perimeter jumpers and scoring in transition. Freshman point guard Breean Walas was the catalyst.

Walas scored eight points and assisted on another four baskets during Cornell's victory-sealing surge. The rookie finished with an impressive stat line: 22 points, seven rebounds, nine assists and no turnovers. Cornell shot 9-of-17 from three-point range--including Walas's 3-of-3--and scored 23 points off Harvard turnovers.

The Crimson's hot-shooting hands, meanwhile, must have caught frostbite in Ithaca's frigid climate. Harvard shot just 29.4 percent in the second half and 20 percent from beyond the arc.

"We definitely went cold on offense," said co-captain Suzie Miller, "But I don't see that as why we lost the game. We lost the game on the defensive end. We missed key rebounds, and we didn't adjust to their [three-point shooting]."

Although there was still 7:54 to play when Cornell opened its 10-point advantage, Harvard abandoned an effective inside game and began shooting almost exclusively from the perimeter. Despite the Crimson's frontcourt trio of Janowski, co-captain Sarah Russell and freshman forward Lindsay Ryba shooting a combined 11-of-18 for the game, they only accounted for one Harvard bucket in the final eight minutes.

The Crimson's guards, by contrast, shot a combined 14-of-51 and looked for the shot more often than the pass into the post during the game's final minutes.

It looked, however, like Gates might lead the Crimson to a come-from-behind victory when she connected on back-to-back treys to cut the Big Red's lead to 66-62 with 3:22 remaining.

But Cornell senior guard Carolyn Janiak converted a transition lay-up at the other end on a nice pass from Walas and drew a foul. Janiak converted the three-point play and gave the Big Red enough breathing room to outlast the late Crimson surge.

"We wanted the ball to go inside way more," Delaney-Smith said. "We didn't have the positional people to play a zone offense, but we should have gone inside."

Harvard looked fatigued after a long trip to Ithaca that came on the heels of a week-long battle with the flu. At one point during the last week, only eight of Harvard's 16 players were healthy enough to attend practice.

Janowski, Russell, Ryba and Miller were still recovering from their illnesses during the weekend, and sophomore point guard Lisa Kowal was a late scratch from the line-up in both of Harvard's games. Kowal was running a temperature of 101.8 at game time on Friday night.

"We had some defensive breakdowns," Russell said. "We couldn't consistently rebound. We knew that Cornell didn't like pressure, and we had a really hard time applying pressure. Our zone breakdowns were ridiculous."

Cornell's leading scorer, senior forward Kristie Riccio, finished with 18 points to complement Walas. Janowski recorded a double-double (11 points, 11 rebounds) to go along with four assists in the losing cause. Gates scored 13, Ryba finished with 12 and Miller tallied 10 points and eight boards for Harvard.

In the battle of freshmen point guards, Harvard's Jen Monti came up short against Walas. Monti turned in a solid effort with nine points, eight assists and only three turnovers, but Walas was better in the match-up of Ivy League Rookie of the Year candidates.

Harvard 75, Columbia 62

The weekend started out in promising fashion for Harvard. Behind an 18-point outing from Egelhoff and 16 points from Janowski, the Crimson had an easy time disposing of Columbia at Levien Gym by a score of 75-62.

Egelhoff led a three-point shooting charge by the Crimson that the Lions could not contain. The junior was 3-of-4 from distance on a night when Harvard shot 43.8 percent from downtown, including 2-of-3 efforts by Miller and freshman guard Laura Barnard.

"We played four guards at times for defensive purposes, and I don't like it offensively," Delaney-Smith said. "But I said to Laura [after the game], 'I love when a player makes me look like a stupid coach for not playing her more,' and that's Laura's stat line. Suzie Miller probably shouldn't have played tonight [due to illness], and she did great."

Meanwhile, Janowski had her way inside against an undersized Columbia squad. Despite only attempting nine shots, the senior center hit five of those and went 6-of-8 from the charity stripe when the Lions had no choice but to hack at her. Janowski also pulled down six rebounds.

"We talked about everybody stepping up," Delaney-Smith said. "I expected every-one to step up. The seniors just brought it out tonight."

After Columbia kept the score close for most of the first half, Harvard used a 10-2 run at the end of the period to open 38-26 halftime edge. Egelhoff started things off with a three from the right wing to put Harvard ahead by seven.

Columbia senior guard Rose Jackson then converted a pair of free throws, and the Crimson reeled off the final seven points of the half. Janowski converted a free throw, and Gates followed that with a baseline drive for a nice lay-up. Janowski closed out the scoring with a turnaround in the lane and two free throws 31 seconds later.

The contest became embarrassing for Columbia in the second half as the Lions could get no closer than eight, and that was with 14:59 remaining in the game. During one stretch, the Crimson scored 12 consecutive points, including Barnard's two treys, and led by as many as 22.

HARVARD, 75-62 at Levien Gym, New York Harvard  38  37  --  75 Columbia  26  36  --  62

HARVARD: Monti 1-4 5-6 7; Kinneen 0-1 0-0 0; Janowski 5-9 6-8 16; Egelhoff 7-13 1-2 18; Russell 3-6 1-2 7; Miller 2-3 1-3 7; Gates 5-9 0-3 10; Ryba 1-4 0-0 2; Boike 0-0 0-0 0; Barnard 2-3 0-0 6; Nunamaker 1-2 0-0 2; Zitnik 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS 27-54 14-24 75.

COLUMBIA: Roller 2-7 4-4 10; Jackson 5-13 2-2 16; Pickney 3-12 0-0 7; Cokos 3-8 0-2 6; Vaughan 3-9 4-6 10; Sherwin 1-3 0-0 2; Tubridy 2-4 0-0 5; Loffredo 0-0 0-0 0; Erdman 0-2 2-2 2; Thornton 0-2 0-0 0; Bramlette 2-3 0-0 4. TOTALS: 21-63 12-16 62.

CORNELL, 81-74 at Newman Arena, Ithaca, N.Y. Harvard  39  35  --  74 Cornell  33  48  --  81

HARVARD: Miller 3-7 2-2 10; Russell 2-3 0-0 5; Janowski 3-8 5-6 11; Monti 2-8 4-4 9; Egelhoff 3-13 1-1 8; Kinneen 0-2 0-0 0; Gates 4-13 1-2 13; Barnard 2-8 0-0 6; Ryba 6-7 0-0 12; Nunamaker 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS 25-69 13-15 74.

CORNELL: Stevens 2-3 6-12 11; Riccio 7-16 1-1 18; Linker 3-9 3-4 10; Arcilla 1-6 0-0 2; Walas 6-11 7-7 22; Derden-Little 0-1 0-0 0; McMillan 3-10 0-0 6; Janiak 2-3 1-1 6; Martisauskas 3-4 0-0 6. TOTALS: 27-63 18-25 81.