W. Hoops Lose Monti, Split Away at Penn, Princeton

PHILADELPHIA--With the Ivy season winding down and two of its five original starters injured, the Harvard women's basketball team knew it would be a difficult task to come away with a weekend sweep on the road against Princeton and Penn.

The situation worsened when Crimson sophomore point guard Jenn Monti went down with an ankle injury six minutes into Friday night's game against Princeton. It immediately became clear that any kind of victory on the weekend would take a first-rate effort from the Harvard bench.

And the Crimson reserves came through. Harvard split the weekend, which was just enough to keep pace with the rest of the Ivy League.

Against Princeton (7-18, 4-7 Ivy), Harvard (15-8, 8-3) struggled down the stretch, scoring just one field goal in the last ten minutes. But the one basket, a three-pointer by senior forward Courtney Egelhoff with 36.4 seconds left, gave the Crimson the lead for good in a 67-63 win.

Then against Penn (17-8, 8-3 Ivy), Harvard saw limited playing time from Monti and Johnson, but neither player could make up for the horrific final two minutes of the first half when Harvard turned the ball over three consecutive times against the press and watched a two-point gap quickly expand into a 12-point deficit.

The Crimson was never able to recover. Harvard had its chances, but poor free-throw shooting kept the Crimson within striking distance, as Penn went on to win 79-66.

Despite the loss, Harvard did not lose any ground on first-place Dartmouth (17-7, 9-2) or Penn for the weekend as a whole because the Big Green defeated the Quakers 75-71 on Friday night but then struggled against Princeton the next day in a 64-51 loss, which ended an 11-game win streak.

The Tiger upset capped off a wild weekend in the Ivy League in which the only team to make it through unscathed was Brown, who had been winless up until a week ago.

"Welcome the Ivy League," Harvard Coach Kathy-Delaney Smith said. "It doesn't surprise me a bit. Student-athletes have this enormous pride, and they must win even when they're 0-7. They're proud, confident, and they don't stop playing."

Penn 79, Harvard 66

The Crimson's inability to handle the press in the final two minutes of the first half came at just about the worst possible time.

Harvard had just cut a 28-16 Penn lead down to two with an apparent game-saving 13-3 run led by two freshmen, guard Bree Kelley and center Sarah Johnson.

But after Penn junior forward Diana Caramanico, the No. 2 scorer in the nation, hit both ends of a one-and-one, Harvard was unable to inbound the ball on three consecutive possessions. Penn converted off each steal, and in just 32 seconds, the Quakers had upped their lead by eight points.

For the game, Harvard had 25 turnovers, while Penn committed only eight.

"I thought they were smart [to press]," Delaney-Smith said. "But I thought we turned the ball over without them doing anything other than their bodies just being there. This has happened to us before. We thought we had put this behind us. We literally threw the ball away and put ourselves down 12 at the half."

In the second half, Harvard looked to pull a repeat performance from its last game against Penn in which the Crimson erased a 16-point Quaker deficit.

With 14:35 left and Harvard down by 13, Sarah Johnson came off the bench and sparked a Crimson rally. On a 13-4 run, she scored eight points, including two three-point plays. Harvard trailed 51-47 with 10:47 remaining.

But the Harvard comeback was done in by the team's inability to hit free throws. In the second half, the Crimson shot an abysmal 6-of-15 from the line and twice missed the front end of a one-and-one.

"We're not a bad free throw shooting team," Delaney-Smith said. "These are things that I just can't predict."

When Harvard came from behind in the last Penn game, the rally was led by Monti and captain Laela Sturdy. But this time neither was playing anywhere near the spectacular level of two weeks before.

Sturdy, the Crimson's leading scorer, was held without a point in the second half and shot just 2-of-8 on the day. In the last Penn game Sturdy was close to a sure thing whenever she shot the ball, but the Quaker defense would not allow a repeat performance.

Monti was clearly still hurting from her ankle injury from the day before. She took only three shots in 21 minutes of playing time, and she missed in ways she usually doesn't miss, twice having her shots clank off the front of the rim. Monti managed to score five points and add two assists, but she was not the impact player that she usually is.

"Jenn was really questionable today," Delaney-Smith said. "We took a chance playing her."

Also coming off the bench hurt was junior center Melissa Johnson. Just seconds after coming into the game for the first time, she drew a foul underneath. The two free throws she hit right after were what sparked the Crimson comeback in the first half, but she ultimately was only able to play 13 minutes, shooting just 1-of-6 from the floor.

"Melissa played in this game without ever practicing," Delaney-Smith said. "I was really proud of her effort."

Despite the loss, both Kelley and Sarah Johnson played perhaps their best games of the season.

"Freshman will do that for you," Delaney-Smith said. "Bree Kelley and Sarah Johnson are both going to have great careers."

Kelley led the Crimson with a career-high 19 points and five assists. Five of her points came on the first-half rally, while the other 14 all came in the second half. Frequently she wowed the crowd of 2,201at the Palestra with her dribbling ability and her patented hook shot.

Penn gave Sarah Johnson open room underneath on possession after possession, and she cashed in, scoring a career-high matching 18 points.

Harvard did a relatively decent job against Caramanico and senior guard Mandy West, the top two scorers in the Ivy League.

"They have the best players in the league, I feel," Delaney-Smith said. "They stepped it up tonight, and the rest of the team did their job."

Caramanico scored a game-high 31 points, and West added 23. But West shot just 6-of-19 on the game and 1-of-7 in the second half.

The Crimson defense held Penn to 28.6 percent shooting from the field in the second half and never allowed the Quakers to stretch its lead to more than 13, despite Harvard's offensive struggles.

"I think we threw a couple of defenses at them that stopped them in the half-court," Delaney-Smith said. "But when it worked, we had weak rebounding, and had to come out of it."

Despite the loss, Harvard remains confident that it can beat anyone.

"I think the best team won tonight," Delaney-Smith said. "But on another night it could be us."

Harvard 47, Princeton 43

Surprisingly, the Crimson faced one of its toughest challenges of the season against Princeton on Friday night. With Katie Gates, Melissa Johnson and suddenly Monti out of action, Harvard struggled against the quick, aggressive team that didn't give up an easy basket all game.

The Crimson had led by as many as ten in the second half, but since the 10:14 mark, Harvard had managed just a single point.

Princeton tied the game at the five-minute mark, and then for the next four minutes, both offenses were stagnant. With a minute left, good passing and picking by Princeton gave senior guard Maggie Langlas a free lane to the basket, and she drove in for the layup to put the Tigers up 43-41.

The Crimson chances of victory looked bleak, since Harvard had not scored a single field goal in nine minutes.

But with its season effectively on the line, Harvard came through. After passing the ball around repeatedly up top, absolutely nothing opened up inside. Then with 36.4 seconds left and the shot clock winding down, Egelhoff had an open look at the basket a few feet back of the three-point line.

Figuring it was her team's best chance, she threw up the shot, hitting nothing but net and giving the Crimson a 44-43 lead.

On its next possession, the Tigers, as usual, looked to set up an open three or a backdoor cut, but the Crimson allowed nothing. Hillary Reser attempted a long three, but it was well off, and Egelhoff was the hero once again securing the long rebound, and before being fouled.

Over the next three seconds of playing time, Princeton fouled Harvard four more times in order to force the one-in-one. On the last foul, it was Kelley who was sent to the line.

Completely oblivious to the hostile Tiger crowd full of obnoxious, screaming grade-schoolers, Kelley drained the first shot.

She missed the second, but Sturdy managed to get the rebound. But when Sturdy was sent to the line, she missed her shot, and the Tigers got the rebound in traffic.

The Crimson quickly pressured the Tiger attack on its own end of the floor, but Princeton's Allison Cahill beat everyone down the court and was wide open underneath the basket. Down by two, the Tigers appeared to have the basket that would send the game to overtime.

But Princeton tri-captain Kate Thirolf rushed the pass, overthrowing Cahill. The ball went through the Cahill's outstretched arms and out of bounds.

"I thought, 'Thank God she didn't make that catch!'" Sturdy said. "That was very, very scary. We've had a lot of things like that not go our way. It was very nerve-wracking."

Kelley then hit two free throws to ice the game for Harvard.

"I felt like giving Kate [Thirolf] a big kiss," Delaney-Smith said. "I think that play is going to haunt her."

Princeton can, however, take solace in its amazing defensive effort on the day. Nobody on the Crimson team expected to be held without a single field goal for just under 10 minutes.

"I knew [Princeton coach Liz Feeley] would do what she did," Delaney-Smith said. "She put four or five guards on the floor, and they played a matchup zone. That's a great game plan against us. Our ball-movement wasn't fluid and they didn't let us go inside, so we struggled."

Throughout the scoring drought, the speedy Tiger defense kept Harvard from driving inside. Whenever the Crimson did go inside, Princeton had great success forcing turnovers. Harvard did not appear to be looking for outside shots at all during the stretch, and most that it tried were forced and rushed.

"They're a good defensive team," Sturdy said. "They definitely had a good game plan for us. We kind of adjusted our game, for all their doubles on the post and everything."

The fact that Harvard managed to win this game despite the tough defense and all of its injuries was a tribute to its depth and conditioning.

"People are dropping," Sturdy said. "So I guess it shows how much depth we have. Everybody else has stepped up real big and we were able to pull it off."

Lisa Kowal and Laura Barnard in particular stepped up big for the Crimson this game, each playing more than 20 minutes off the bench.

Kowal's ball-handling ability was crucial after Monti went down. She played 20 minutes and did not turn over the ball once.

Barnard scored two three-pointers on the day for the Crimson. She hit a shot with 43.1 left in the first half to put Harvard up 25-22 at the half. Then she hit a trey that gave the Crimson a 40-31 lead at the midway mark, which was the last Harvard field goal before the scoring drought.

Barnard appeared to be a step faster than everyone on both ends of the court.

"I love what [Laura] has been doing," Delaney-Smith said. "I played her 15 straight minutes at one point. She had an absolutely fabulous game, for a bench kid to be in shape and last that long."

Sturdy and Ides were the leading scorers for Harvard, with 12 and 11 points respectively. Ides continued to do an excellent job in place of Melissa Johnson. On the few occasions when the Tigers gave her open space down low, she always managed to convert.

Though Egelhoff only had six points, her two three-pointers were huge. She hit a trey in the first half that put the Crimson up 13-7, its largest lead of the first half, as well as the shot that won the game for Harvard.

The Crimson defense did an excellent job shutting down the Tiger offense. Princeton used a lot of movement and frequent screens which forced Harvard to run around non-stop, but the Crimson did not wear down a bit.

"I am so impressed with how they're playing hard right now," Delaney-Smith said.

It was the second time this year that Princeton had given a Harvard a tough challenge. In their last meeting, Princeton came back from a 13-point deficit to pull within two, before falling 73-67.

"I am so proud of the people that stepped it up," Delaney-Smith said. "Princeton's a deep team and they kept coming at us. To lose Jenn in a game like that and not react to it I think is a good thing. We stepped it up and won a close game anyway. That's a better win than we've had all year."