After Clark Goes Down, Women's Basketball Hangs On To Top Bears

After suffering back-to-back narrow losses, the Harvard women’s basketball team never trailed against Brown Sunday afternoon at Lavietes Pavilion. Despite a series of late-game scares, the Crimson (9-8, 2-1 Ivy) moved back above .500 with a 65-57 victory.

Harvard flew out of the gates thanks to strong defensive pressure and offensive efficiency. Fifteen minutes into the contest, the Crimson had forced nine turnovers off of five steals and grabbed a 32-13 lead and sophomore Christine Clark had as many points as the entire Bears team.

“We came out in the first half with one of the strongest halves we’ve had in the second half of the season,” said co-captain Brogan Berry, whose team led 34-20 at the break. “Our focus was there; our intensity was there.”

The dynamic of the game changed 30 seconds into the second half when Clark was poked in the eye and forced to sit out the remainder of the match. For a while, the offense continued to click as Harvard extended its lead to 46-30 five minutes into the period.

But the attack stagnated. Over the next 10 minutes, the team mustered only five points while Brown stormed back.

“Clark was huge for us in this kind of a game, so that was an unfortunate loss,” Delaney-Smith said. “I think if we had Clark we would have cleaned up this team.”

Clark’s absence forced the Crimson to rely on Berry and junior Victoria Lippert for extended minutes two days after a tight loss to Yale.

“When you play back to back, you actually lose your legs,” Delaney-Smith said. “The first thing that goes is your threes. We had some great shots, and the fact that we were missing our foul shots was no legs.”

A key to the Bears’ run was strong defensive pressure. Without Clark, Harvard was forced to try to break the press with one fewer strong ball handler.

“Generally people don’t press us because you can’t. We are very good against it,” Delaney-Smith said. “In that particular time, we got very conservative and standstill.”

With 4:30 remaining, Brown sophomore Lauren Clarke capped off a 24-8 Bears’ run with her only made field goal of the night, a deep three-pointer from three feet behind the arc to tie the game at 54. The Bears’ run was fueled by 15 trips to the free-throw line, where Brown knocked down all but one of its attempts.

“The refereeing was good until that stretch where all of the sudden there was banging that they were calling at that end,” Delaney-Smith said. “The same thing was happening at our end, but we weren’t getting the call, and that’s what I didn’t like.”

Berry quickly responded to Clarke’s game-tying triple with a three of her own to put the Crimson back in the lead. After Brown answered with another three, Delaney-Smith’s strategy was limited by the absence of Clark.

After the game, the coach said she wanted to give Berry another open look but wasn’t comfortable with the ball in any other player’s hands to advance it up the court. Lippert stepped up by knocking down a trey of her own.

The back-and-forth offensive game stopped when Clarke missed a three-point attempt after four straight had fallen for the two teams combined. On the ensuing possession, Missy Mullins stepped to the line after being fouled in the paint but couldn’t convert either attempt.

But with less than a minute remaining, Mullins was let off the hook as the Bears failed to capitalize on the opportunity to thin the lead when Clarke missed a layup chance. Berry sealed the win, converting five of six free-throw attempts in the final minute.

“Brogan was huge in the end hitting those free throws to put us back in the lead,” Lippert said. “We were able to step up our defense at the end to get stops and hit our free throws to get the win.”

—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman can be reached at jacobfeldman@college.harvard.edu.