BASKETBALL '06: Arc of Triumph

Last season, the Harvard women’s basketball team grew accustomed to the late-game heroics of guard Laura Robinson ’06.

From the point guard spot, Robinson kept the Crimson in close games with a knack for getting into the lane, drawing contact, and nailing last-second free throws.

But she graduated in June with fellow backcourt teammate Jessica Holsey ’06, and the duo’s departure leaves big shoes for a young Harvard backcourt to fill—especially if the Crimson hopes to challenge for the Ivy Title this year.

“Laura loved to be the go-to,” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith says. “Laura was ice-woman. Talent-wise, we have several people who can fill those shoes, but emotionally and mentally, I’m not sure who wants it yet.”

The Crimson has plenty of talent in sophomore guards Emily Tay and Niki Finelli and junior guard Lindsay Hallion. They also have experience in co-captain Kyle Dalton, and potential in junior guard Jessica Knox. The numbers are there where the experience is not: Hallion is the only returning starter in the backcourt, and she missed all of her first season with a torn ACL.

This young Harvard squad—the Crimson has just two seniors on the roster, and five of the team’s 12 players are sophomores—inherits an Ivy League that graduated all three of the first team All-Ivy guard selections from 2005-2006. Dartmouth lost stars Angie Soriaga and Jeannie Cullen, while Brown graduated 2005-2006 Ivy League Player of the Year Sarah Hayes.

The Crimson also lost its two backcourt leaders but has two athletic slashers in Hallion and Tay and a veritable sharpshooter in Finelli.

Tay led the team in scoring five times last year, busting loose in a 24-point performance against Columbia in March. Finelli twice poured in 16 points in the late Ivy season, giving Harvard a permanent go-to on the perimeter.

“This year the dynamic of our guards has changed a lot,” Finelli says. “We lost a lot of confidence and leadership in our senior class, but the guards we have this year have a different style of play. We’re quicker and we’re faster, and being as young as we are but having played together so much, it’s easy to gel with each and other and get in a flow.”

A young corps on the perimeter should get ample support from Harvard’s ferocious inside game. In a league where a team can be successful with one quality low-post player who likes playing close to the basket, the Crimson has four in junior Adrian Budischak and sophomores Katie Rollins, Emma Moretzsohn, and Liz Tindal.

This year, explosiveness at the guard spot will open up opportunities in the lane for Harvard’s forwards—and the guards know it. The perimeter contributed just 39 percent of the Crimson’s offense last year, as Holsey missed almost all year with a series of injuries and Finelli came in several game into the the season.

Tay was explosive at times, but her youth showed in hurried attempts to make big plays and games with too many turnovers. Delaney-Smith expects better defense out of Hallion, and Finelli will see more playing time than she did last season.

Knox, who played sparingly last year, will also get more minutes, as will Dalton. Delaney-Smith knows, however, that her young guard corps must stay healthy if the Crimson is to be effective on the perimeter.

She’ll also take somebody who can fill Robinson’s shoes in late-game situations—a role yet unfilled, but not unchallenged.

“Niki [Finelli] wants it,” Delaney-Smith says. “I think [Jessica Knox] shows signs of wanting it too, but that hasn’t been established yet. Lindsay’s one of them. Lindsay can and E-Tay can.”

“Lindsay [Hallion],” Moretzsohn says when asked to identify a late-game hero. “She has amazing drive and energy. If we were down by 50, she’d still feel that we could get right back in it and push us up.”

The graduation of Robinson and Holsey has raised the stakes for Harvard’s young perimeter game.

The Crimson played all last year without a bonafide star, and Robinson often carried the torch for the backcourt.

The success—and leadership—of this year’s guard corps will dictate much of the Crimson’s Ivy league season. Dartmouth won two consecutive Ivy titles behind the guard play of Soriaga and Cullen. When Harvard split the title with the Big Green in 2004-2005, Holsey and then-senior Katie Murphy ’05 were indispensable on both ends of the floor.

“We won’t have to rely on one person to take it up, because we have so much depth and talent at the guard spot.” Hallion says. “We’ll all be able to instill that confidence in one another and be able to make plays at the end of the game.”

—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.