Peljto, Cserny Lead Crimson Rebound

With less than 30 seconds to play, sophomore center Reka Cserny banked in a clutch shot and junior forward Hana Peljto followed with two key free throws to clinch the Harvard women’s basketball team a 79-70 victory over Northeastern yesterday.

Judging by records and reputations, the game was closer than it ever should have been. But as Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith noted, Northeastern is always a tough team to beat. In this hard-fought game, the Huskies took the Crimson to the wire.

With just eight minutes left in the game, Northeastern still deperately clung to a one point lead. But freshman guard Jessica Holsey—who scored 10 points off the bench—sank a three that put Harvard up 65-63.

The Crimson never trailed again.

After Cserny hit a three-pointer to give Harvard (4-1) a seven-point lead with less than three minutes to play, the Crimson seemed to have the game well in hand. But Northeastern (2-3) clawed its way back, narrowing the Harvard lead to three.

Only the impressive last-minute efforts of Cserny and Peljto saved the Crimson from what could have been a crushing defeat. Each scored a game-high 24 points, and both registered double-digits in rebounds.

For Cserny, who has been recovering from a badly sprained ankle, her performance was by far her best of the year. She connected on 8-of-17 field goals, including 3-of-5 from behind the three-point arc.

On the boards, she was equally formidable. At 6’3, Cserny towered over the Northeastern frontcourt, as was evidenced on Harvard’s first possesion of the game, in which she and Peljto combined to record three offensive rebounds.

Cserny was modest about her performance, deflecting the praise to her teammates.

“I didn’t even realize [the double-double],” Cserny said. “I don’t really care about that. More important is that we won, and that we got a good team effort in the second half.”

Delaney-Smith applauded Cserny’s performance.

“Finally she busted out in this game,” Delaney-Smith said.

Leading the way for the Huskies was junior Aisha Williams. The dimunitive point guard—at 5’4 the shortest player on the squad—scored a team-high 17 points on 5-of-8 shooting. Her smooth ball-handling skills, along with her cornrowed hair, reminded observers of Allen Iverson.

For most of the first half, Harvard played as though it had not recovered from its devastating 84-44 loss at Vanderbilt last Saturday. A number of careless turnovers allowed Northeastern to take a 31-23 lead with 6:30 left to play in the half.

Harvard went to the full-court press, forcing the Huskies to cough up the ball and allowing the Crimson to run the floor. Over the next four minutes Harvard went on a 12-3 run, taking the lead at 35-34.

But Northeastern struck back, going on a six-point run of its own. The Crimson went to the locker room down 41-35 to a Northeastern team it expected to beat.

“I was really angry at halftime,” Delaney-Smith said.

She credited the halftime deficit to a lack of intensity.

“We did not look intense on defense at all,” she said. “I was very disappointed. And I think that the [lack of intensity] rears its ugly head when you see that in the first three minutes of the game we had five turnovers.”

The Crimson ceratinly will have to start stronger if they hope to beat Minnesota this Sunday. Minnesota is the 14th-ranked team in the country. Harvard is not ranked.

“We have to start stronger this weekend,” Cserny said, “because if they get a lead in the first half, we won’t be able to come back.”