Women's Basketball Earns Resounding Win Against Columbia

Needing a win to stay in the hunt for a WNIT bid, the Harvard women’s basketball team didn’t mess around Friday night at Lavietes Pavilion, as it took down Columbia, 88-64.

Co-captain Brogan Berry scored the first six points of the game on a pair of three-point plays, one on a three-pointer and the other on an and-on finish. Berry then showed her passing prowess as she dished the ball to junior Victoria Lippert for a jumper.

The Crimson tallied 10 points before the Lions even got on the board and extended its lead from there. At one point early on, the home squad was up, 22-3, and it finished the first half leading, 43-24. One of Columbia’s lone highlights in the first period came as the buzzer sounded when junior Tyler Simpson hit a remarkable turnaround jumper to narrow the gap by two. Even so, Harvard owned the first 20 minutes of the game.

“We finally were able to kind of peak and hit our stride in this game,” Berry said.

The Crimson’s success could largely be attributed to a consistent ability to bring down rebounds. In the contest, Harvard corralled 55 rebounds. Hagedorn led the team with 13 boards to go with 11 points for her first career double-double. Lippert added 10 rebounds in addition to her 13 points. For the first time since the 2009 season, two Crimson players recorded double-doubles.

“[Friday], we really put an emphasis on anticipating the shot so that we could get in rebounding position early,” Hagedorn said. “I was able to do that and basically everyone else did as well. That change in mindset really helped us improve our rebounding in this game.”

Many of those rebounds led to fastbreaks, as the team scored 14 points in transition and many more on the secondary break.

“We got a lot of possessions because our offensive rebounding was amazing, and everyone was moving the ball really well,” Berry said. “We were pushing the ball, and we had a lot of possessions—we had about four a minute.”

The team also consistently converted from the charity stripe. After going 21 for 21 on free throws in its last game against the Lions, Harvard started out 18 for 18 Friday before the sole miss of the night and finished 24 of 25 from the line. The Crimson attempted as many shots as Columbia and made only four more, but its 96 percent free-throw percentage made a big difference as the Lions went 10 of 16 from the line.

“When things are clicking out there, there is less pressure at the line,” Hagedorn said. “We went up pretty early, and there wasn’t as much pressure with each free throw.”

Berry and sophomore Christine Clark both entered the locker room at halftime having already accrued double-digit points, and they finished the game with 16 and 18 points respectively, to lead the team.

The second half brought more Harvard dominance, even as reserves played extended minutes. The bench tallied 18 of its 30 points in the second half while the Crimson extended its lead. By the end of the game, Harvard had recorded one of its strongest performances of the year in the 88-64 victory. The 88 points represented the highest scoring output for the Crimson since a double-overtime game against Penn last season.

Whereas in the past the team has shown a propensity to give up a portion of its lead during a dry stretch in the second half, that lull never came Friday.

“If we mentally prepare ourselves correctly, nothing can stop us because physically we are one of the best teams I’ve played with at Harvard,” Berry said. “If we focus on defense and rebounding for a full 40 minutes, we won’t ever have a slump.’

With the win, Harvard moved a half game ahead of Yale for second place in the Ivy League as the Bulldogs were beaten by Princeton Friday. With the second team in the Ancient Eight getting an automatic bid to the WNIT, the team is battling to keep its season alive.

“We’re playing for our seniors, but we’re also playing for ourselves because we love playing with Brogan [Berry] and Lindsay [Louie],” Hagedorn said. “So as long as we can keep playing with them and hopefully make the WNIT, we will do everything we can to win.”

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