W. Hoops Preps for Brown, Yale

The Harvard women's basketball team, tied atop the Ivy standings with Penn and Dartmouth, begins round two of league play tonight when it faces a Brown team that made a 25-6 second-half run on the Crimson before falling 73-64 a month ago.

The Crimson (13-6, 6-1 Ivy) will follow that contest up with a trip to Yale (9-12, 5-3), a team Harvard blew out with a 93-77 win on Jan. 15.

"Both teams work really hard," said senior guard Courtney Egelhoff. "They press a lot and they drive to the hole a lot. We have to come ready to play our best game."

Good news for the Crimson is that sophomore forward Katie Gates will be back in the lineup after sitting out for nearly a month following a concussion suffered against Yale in January. Bad news is that junior center Melissa Johnson won't be in the lineup and is out indefinitely after an injury against Penn on Friday.

Johnson tore her miniscus and suffered a slight tear in her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

"Worst case scenario is that she couldn't play for the rest of the season," said captain Laela Sturdy. "Best case scenario is that she can wear a brace and play next week. The ACL is the thing that is keeping her sidelined for stability reasons. It's an injury that needs to be evaluated every day."

Brown (5-17, 0-8) has been down on its luck throughout the Ivy season thus far and seems ripe for an upset.

In the month of February alone, the Bears have lost in overtime to Princeton, 55-52, fallen to Penn, 63-52, suffered a 64-63 heartbreaker to Columbia and a 74-71 near-upset to Cornell.

"Their record is definitely misleading," Sturdy said. "You have to take everyone in the Ivy season seriously."

Brown freshman guard Barbara Maloni is coming off a career weekend that earned her the Ivy League Rookie of the Week award.

Maloni, who has the quickness to give Harvard point guard Jenn Monti a challenge, scored 30 points and grabbed eight boards against Cornell and tallied 23 points and six rebounds against Columbia the previous night. She is averaging 14.4 points per game.

In the two teams' previous meeting, Maloni had 18 points and six assists in 39 minutes.

Another player the Crimson will have to contend with is sophomore center Rachael McDonald. McDonald scored 22 points against the Crimson the first time around and averages 10.9 ppg.

"We're going to try and double if she gets hot," Sturdy said.

But Harvard won't be able to combat McDonald without Johnson, one of the team's top guns in both scoring and rebounding. Johnson is out indefinitely with a torn miniscus and slightly-torn ACL after going down in the first half of last Friday's game against Penn.

Last time against the Bears, Johnson grabbed 17 rebounds and scored 15 points while matched-up against McDonald. Melissa Johnson will likely be replaced by her freshman sister, Sarah, in the starting lineup.

Another interesting matchup will be Courtney Egelhoff guarding her freshman sister, Heidi, a guard for Brown. Egelhoff said she wasn't sure if she would be matched up against her sister.

The Bulldogs are leading the second tier of Ivy League teams and are looking to crack the Dartmouth-Harvard-Penn stronghold. Yale's only league losses have come against those top three.

Against Yale in its first meeting, the Crimson dominated the Bulldogs, led by Monti's school-record 14 assists.

The Crimson also saw two players record double-doubles. Captain Laela Sturdy scored 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, and Johnson had 18 boards to go along with 12 points. Egelhoff notched 18 points.

Yale was led by Maria Smear, a 5'11 freshman guard, in the first meeting between the traditional rivals. Smear scored 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting.

"Maria is a really good shooter from the outside and she is a good penetrator," Egelhoff said. "They have a lot of good kids who can penetrate. They're pretty talented."

Three other Bulldogs scored in double figures, including junior center Lily Glick, who tallied 15.

One player who could be dangerous is sophomore point guard Jamie Riposta, who is quick off the dribble and like to dish the ball. She hit teammates for nine buckets against Harvard in the two teams' last game.

Despite missing Johnson, the Crimson will have some big guns to rely on.

Sturdy, a post player, is second in the nation in 3-point percentage at 54.7 percent. Monti is eighth in the nation in assists at 6.7 per game.

And with Melissa Johnson out of the lineup, Sarah Johnson will be given another opportunity to shine. Earlier this year, she earned Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors after performances like an 18-point, 10-rebound game in 19 minutes against Rhode Island in December.

Another player who should see time is freshman Kate Ides, who saw significant minutes against Princeton, scoring 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting.

Egelhoff is optimistic about the weekend.

"Through the game film, we've located some seams in their defense," she said. "We have definite game plans for both teams, we just have to execute them."