Women's Basketball Finishes with Pair of Wins at Hall of Fame Tournament

In the marathon that was the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Tournament, Harvard started strong and finished stronger, with two last-minute victories giving it a winning tournament record.

Coming off a last-second one-point loss to Boston University the previous week, the Crimson (3-2) was determined to make any close game a victory.

HARVARD 79, HOLY CROSS 76

Harvard made its last performance a dramatic one, slating a winning tournament record with its 79-76 overtime win over Holy Cross (0-6).

Throughout the first minutes, it looked like the Crimson was going to have a handed win. Junior forward AnnMarie Healy dominated the first half, scoring 15 points to lead the team. The Crusaders trailed the entire half but could not surmount Harvard’s lead. At halftime, the Crimson led, 36-27.

Like the tournament’s two previous games, the second half provided a close contest. Holy Cross tied up the score, 58-58, with five minutes left. The waning moments of the game saw five three-pointers, two from Harvard’s senior point guard Ali Curtis. Curtis made her presence known in the second half, finishing the game with 22 points and six rebounds.

The last five seconds of the competition saw a trey from Holy Cross sophomore guard Kate Gillespie, to tie the game, 69-69. After three full back-to-back contests, this game was going to overtime.

“We always say that fatigue is a mental state not a physical one,” Curtis said. “We had to mentally prepare and overcome.”

Overtime saw the lead repeatedly switch multiple times. Gillespie netted another three pointer to give the Crusaders a lead with less than a minute left in the game. However, co-captain Erin McDonnell put up her fifth three-pointer of the game, and senior forward Temi Fagbenle made two free throws to solidify the Crimson’s win.

“With an overtime after a full game, it wasn’t easy,” co-captain Kaitlyn Dinkins said. “It was definitely our will and determination.”

NOTRE DAME 97, HARVARD 43

Tournament host Notre Dame (6-0) upheld its national No. 2 ranking on Monday night, defeating Harvard, 97-43.

The Crimson had a brief lead in the game’s opening minutes. McDonnell showed no fatigue from her performance the night before, putting up a jump shot and three-pointer. By the end of the game, McDonnell had registered double-digits for the second time in the tournament, leading the team with 10 points and six rebounds.

“We came into it knowing this is a fight, and we are the underdogs,” Dinkins said. “We gave it everything we could.”

Notre Dame spent the first half’s final 13 minutes outscoring the Crimson, 50-4.

However, trailing after halftime, 59-13, the Crimson rallied, giving the Fighting Irish an opponent it would have to fight against. Harvard more than doubled its shooting percentage from 17.2 percent to 40 percent, netting 30 points in the second half.

Even with this effort, Notre Dame continued to dominate, with five different players putting up double figures. Sophomore forward Taya Reimer led the host, scoring 14 points. This performance is nothing new for the Fighting Irish, which has beaten three teams by 54 or more points in this year’s undefeated campaign.

Ultimately, the Crimson was unable to catch up to Notre Dame, and it would have to enter day three of the Hall of Fame Challenge with a 1-1 record.

“It didn’t result in a win, but we learned a lot from that game [against Notre Dame],” Dinkins said. “When we have games like that [in the future], it will have a different outcome.”

HARVARD 87, QUINNIPIAC 83

In the first game of the tournament, Harvard took on Quinnipiac (3-2), beating the Bobcats, 87-83.

The close score fails to indicate the impressive performances made by forwards Fagbenle, McDonnell, and Healy. Fagbenle’s 28 points and 11 rebounds, McDonnell’s 18 points and 13 rebounds, and Healy’s 18 points and 11 rebounds marked the first time a Crimson trio has notched double-doubles since 2000.

“Those three players having double-doubles—that’s just will,” Dinkins said. “They knew that they needed to do that to win and that was really just sacrificing and doing it for our team.”

The game started when Fagbenle’s jumpshot found the net 20 seconds in. Both teams continued to put up points, and Harvard began increasing the lead on Quinnipiac.  Scoring 12 consecutive points, the Crimson was up, 18-6, five minutes into the game.

As the first half continued, the Bobcats managed to bring the score to a two-point margin, despite not being able to close it. As the buzzer sounded, Quinnipiac trailed Harvard, 37-41.

The second half proved a more heated contest, with a seemingly transformed Bobcat team taking the court. Quinnipiac quickly overtook the Crimson for the first time in the game.

The competition became even closer in the last 10 minutes. The neck-and-neck battle lasted until the last two minutes, when Fagbenle sunk a three-pointer and a free-throw, giving Harvard a one-point lead that the Crimson would not relinquish.

“It was that mental state of knowing that we’re there for each other and [that] we had to play as a team to pull out the win,” Curtis said.