Berry Leads Women's Basketball to Another Ivy Win

Brogan Berry ran the show Friday night at Lavietes Pavilion. Leading the Harvard women’s basketball team to a 66-52 win over Penn, the senior captain netted a season-high 26 points while shutting down the Quakers’ leading scorer. In the second half, Berry scored half of her team’s points. And she did it all with a wrap protecting her sprained thumb.

“I came into the weekend trying to get back to the way I usually play with a lot of confidence,” Berry said. “I usually don’t have the scoring mentality, but going into the second half of the Ivy my senior year, I’m not ready to lose, so whatever it takes I’ll do to win.”

Eighteen seconds into the game, Berry made her presence felt by knocking down a jumper. After being held to five points against Columbia and single digits in three of the Crimson’s last five games, she was due for an outburst.

Early on, her Harvard team (12-8, 5-1 Ivy) battled Penn (8-12, 1-5) and controlled a single digit lead. The home team opened up a 15-6 lead early but a bevy of deep threes and midrange jumpers by Quakers fueled an 11-2 run that ended with the match tied at 17. The Crimson would regain the lead soon after held it for the rest of the half.

On the final possession of the frame, Penn sophomore Alyssa Baron knocked down a contested three-pointer as the buzzer sounded to pull the Quakers within a single point, 30-29. Baron was pivotal for the Penn offense early, as she tallied 18 points in the first half alone thanks to four treys and a couple of deep two-point jump shots.

“Our defense was terrible on [Baron],” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “We played off of her. That was just not what they were told to do.”

“We knew Baron was a good player and for her to have 20 points in the first half was a huge disappointment for our entire team,” Berry said. “It was a wakeup call, and we really adjusted in the second half.”

To begin the game, sophomore Christine Clark was tasked with stopping the Quaker sharpshooter. But after Baron dazzled in the first half and Clark was sidelined with two fouls, Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith switched up the defensive assignments and entrusted Berry with slowing down Baron.

Berry was up to the challenge. In the second half, Baron was zero for five with zero points.

“I come from a very defensive background, so I take a lot of pride in holding the other team down,” Berry said. “The only way they were going to win was if [Baron] had a great second half, so I kept her out of the play as much as possible.”

At the same time Berry was locking down Baron, she was leading her team on the offensive end of the court. She had 11 points in the first 6:16 of the second half and 18 points overall in the period.

The Penn players not named Baron stepped up to match Berry’s production in the opening minutes of the second period, as the teams went back and forth until Harvard took a 42-41 lead when Miriam Rutzen converted an and-one opportunity. After grabbing that slight advantage, the Crimson extended its lead to 52-43 thanks to a balanced attack led by the shooting and passing of Berry.

Then both offenses slowed as neither team could register a score for over three minutes, but none other than Berry broke Harvard’s cold spell with a jumper with eight minutes left. During the remainder of the game, the senior knocked down a big three and two clutch free throws to seal the 66-52 victory.

“We got the stops about halfway through the second half when we needed to,” Berry said. “It just took that little bit of defensive effort to get us going and not looking back.”

As a result of her dominant performance, Berry moved into sixth place in points in Crimson history with 1,326. She wasn’t the only one to set records Friday. Junior Victoria Lippert notched her 1,000 point early in the game, becoming the sixth player to reach the mark before her senior campaign.

Junior Emma Golen recorded career-highs in points and assists with 13 and four, respectively. As a whole, Harvard recorded its 300th Ivy league victory, becoming only the second team in the conference to achieve the milestone.

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