Women's Basketball Opens Conference Slate with Win

In its first Ivy League matchup of the season, the Harvard women’s basketball team came away with a win over Dartmouth on Saturday night. Playing in Hanover, N.H., the Crimson held its opponent to a season low 43 points on 32 percent shooting from the field.

In its last matchup of a five game road trip, it was Harvard’s defense that made the difference in the matchup. Forcing 19 turnovers and out-rebounding the Big Green (5-12, 0-1 Ivy) 45 to 36, the Crimson (6-8, 1-0) never trailed after tying the game four minutes into the first quarter.

“Everybody stepped up,” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “Everybody on the team rebounded and that’s the kind of effort that we need. There was a big difference in our intensity and our grit on defense.”

Despite shooting 35 percent from the field and 25 percent from beyond the arc, Harvard came away with the 56-43 victory with four players in double digits. The Crimson’s three seniors—AnnMarie Healy, Kit Metoyer, and Shilpa Tummala—lead the way with a combined 35 points and 20 rebounds. Junior forward Destiny Nunley added 11 points and seven rebounds.

After opening the period with a layup and a three, Dartmouth was held to a single field goal over the next nine minutes of play. During this time, Harvard was able to put up 12 consecutive points and ended the quarter up 15-7.

“Defense has been our focus through the whole season and it was great to see our team play such great team defense,” Healy said. “I think they definitely had some strong players who really knew how to shoot and get their shot and go to the basket and we were able to lock in. Everyone was able to shut them down through help defense and rotation.”

After trading shots for much of the second quarter the Big Green pulled within six points off three made jumpers in a row. The Crimson responded with three in a row as well, putting the lead back at 12.

With Dartmouth playing zone, Harvard was forced to take a lot of shots from outside. Despite being forced outside the paint, the Crimson still managed to put up 26 points down low to the Big Green’s 10.

“They played zone most of the game which is why we took a lot of threes,” Delaney-Smith said. “Again, we shot below par. You can’t win a ballgame shooting like that, but you can if you work hard on defense, and hold a team to 43 points, and out-rebound them.”

For Harvard, the defensive effort went beyond the boards. The Crimson stole the ball nine times, with five coming from Tummala. Harvard doubled the Big Green’s points off turnovers with 14 to Dartmouth’s seven. Despite shooting 28 percent from the field in the third quarter the Crimson ended the quarter up by 12 on a three from Tummala and a layup from Nunley.

“This whole game can be described in one word and that’s ‘team,’” Healy said. “On offense it was great because we were sharing the ball and they played a lot of zone and we were able to be slow and controlled and find the open player.”

After shooting 15-of-48 through the first three quarters the Crimson’s offense lit up in the fourth quarter. Shooting 50 percent Harvard pushed the lead to 19 off three jumpshots and two threes. Metoyer would score seven of her 12 on 3-of-3 shooting in the period.

Despite a 9-0 run from the Big Green late in the fourth the Crimson would hold on for the win. After going 2-6 on the road the win was well welcomed.

“For us it’s huge,” Delaney-Smith said. “We let a lot of games slip that we felt we should have won. When you have a young team then it chips away at your confidence. Every coach in the world will tell you that winning cures all so it was a really big win for us.”

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