W. Basketball Takes Low-key Tuneup in Albany

One never knows what will happen during that first tune-up game after break.

Led by freshman Hana Peljto's 21 points off the bench, the Harvard women's basketball team posted a comfortable 68-55 win at Albany (5-16) on Monday night. Typical of all post-exam games, the team showed a few signs of rust but came through in the end.

Sophomore guard Chris Gray led the Great Danes with 11 points, and forward Liz Tucker racked up 10 points for the night. With her performance, Tucker moved into third place on Albany's all-time scoring list.

Harvard (5-11, 2-1 Ivy) trailed 11-4 early on, but rebounded on the strength of its defense, which held the Danes to a season-low point total at the half and forced 13 turnovers en route to a 24-17 Crimson lead.

"Our defense picked up--that's the biggest reason why we came back," Peljto said. "Our shooting comes and goes. Defense is definitely our constant."

The Crimson shot a paltry 2-of-16 from three-point range--a disappointing statistic for a team that has often shot better from outside the arc than from the floor.

But the shooting news wasn't all bad. The Crimson shot 22-of-25 from the free throw line, including a remarkable 18-of-20 after the break, which made any Albany comeback impossible.

"We set some new team goals after break and that was one of them," Peljto said. "We practiced free throws a lot over break, and we definitely achieved that goal."

Peljto led the 8-0 Harvard run that broke the game open early in the second half. With the Crimson up by five, Peljto converted a three-point play after being fouled in the lane, then drained a three soon after to put Harvard up 40-27 with 12:18 left. Albany would not cut the lead to single digits for the rest of the night.

Peljto also led the Crimson rally that erased the early 11-4 deficit, and junior guard Jenn Monti--who had 10 points and five assists on the night--put Harvard in the lead for good at 17-15.

The defenses let up in the second half, as both teams shot exactly 12-of-27 (44.4 percent) from the floor, and the Crimson controlled the game by hitting its shots from the line.

Wild turnarounds are nothing new in the Harvard-Albany series. Last year the Crimson jumped to a 20-1 lead, only to find itself trailing 41-34 late in the second half, before exploding on a 18-0 run to take the game, 68-57.

Harvard got an astonishing 45 points from its bench yesterday. About half were from Peljto, while most of the rest came from sophomore center Sarah Johnson, who tallied 13 in just 13 minutes of play.

"Sarah was definitely a spark off the bench for us," Peljto said. "We knew she was hot so we went to her inside as much as possible."

Johnson had her best game since being sidelined due to heart palpitations earlier in the season--good news for the team as it resumes its Ivy schedule.

The third-place Crimson will host Cornell (9-8, 2-2) on Friday and Columbia (4-12, 2-2) on Saturday, before its big showdown at preseason favorite Penn (10-5, 2-0) the following week.