Women's Basketball Goes Cold in 67-50 Loss to Fairfield

Despite going on a 18-4 run late in the second half to pull within five, the Harvard women’s basketball team ultimately could not make up a 19-point deficit as it fell to Fairfield, 67-50.

Playing on the road at Alumni Hall, the Crimson (4-6) struggled to catch up to the Stags (5-6) after Harvard failed to score during an eight-minute gap between the first and second quarters, allowing 16 points during that span.

Down 15 entering the fourth quarter, the Crimson mounted a comeback led by co-captain AnnMarie Healy and classmate Shilpa Tummala, who scored over half of Harvard’s points, combining for 39 of the Crimson’s 50. After pulling within five off a jumper from Healy, Harvard struggled to score down the stretch, putting up seven to Fairfield’s 19 in the last seven minutes of the contest.

“They had the lead the whole game,” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “They took the lead early in the first, and we were in the hole, down 15 for most of the game. We had a nice comeback in the fourth, brought it down to five or six, and then we just couldn’t sustain it.”

Despite finishing with more than twice as many offensive rebounds as the Stags, the Crimson failed to capitalize due to poor shooting. Harvard shot a season-low 29.5 percent from the field and 26.9 percent from beyond the arc.

The shooting struggles for the Crimson began early. Through the first two quarters, Healy and Tummala were the only two Harvard players to register a field goal, accounting for 19 of Harvard’s 20 in the first half. The Crimson entered halftime down 13 after a difficult second quarter where Harvard shot 2-of-14 from the field and 1-of-7 from beyond the arc.

“We we’re not very connected offensively. We looked very out of sync, out of sorts,” Delaney-Smith said. “We didn’t execute any of our offenses very well. I don’t know whether that’s because we haven’t played in three weeks or what it was. We didn’t execute our system very well.”

“We are just disappointed that the ball didn't go in,” Healy added.

Beyond the shooting struggles, the Crimson has difficulty scoring in the paint. There, Harvard scored only six points to Fairfield’s 34. Often relegated to taking outside shots, the Crimson took a total of 26 three-pointers to the Stags’ eight, connecting only on seven.

To add to Harvard’s offensive woes, the team struggled at the charity stripe, making only seven of its 14 free throws, while the Stags shot 18-of-22.

On the defensive end, the Crimson struggled to shut down the Stag offense, allowing Fairfield to shoot nearly 50 percent from the field and failing to shut down junior forward Kelsey Carey who went for 27 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the field.

“We were very disjointed,” Delaney-Smith said. “We didn’t come together as a team—definitely not on the offensive end and then we just had big lapses on the defensive end.”

While Harvard matched Fairfield point for point in the third before making its late run, the Crimson failed to capitalize off turnovers late and sent the Stags to the line often, allowing Fairfield to tally 11 points in the fourth quarter at the charity stripe. Fairfield ended the match on a 19-7 run that saw the Harvard miss 10 of its last 13 shots.

Monday’s loss marks the Crimson’s fourth in a row after the squad won three straight earlier in the season.

—Staff writer Troy Boccelli can be reached at tboccelli@college.harvard.edu.