Columbia women’s basketball, which clinched a slot in the Ivy League Tournament earlier in the weekend, used an 11-0 run late in the fourth quarter to pull away from Harvard in a 71-63 win in a nationally televised game at a sold-out Lavietes Pavilion Sunday afternoon.
The Lions (18-5, 9-1 Ivy) swept the season series from the Crimson and remain in sole possession of second place, one game behind No. 25 Princeton with four games left in the regular season. Despite the defeat, Harvard (14-9, 7-3) maintains its hold on third place, two games over Brown, but its chances at the No. 1 seed are quickly slipping away.
The two teams went back and forth all afternoon, with 19 lead changes, seven ties and neither team holding a lead of more than four points through the first 33 minutes of action.
Over the next five minutes, however, things would change.
Columbia made five of its next nine shots while forcing the Crimson into four turnovers and a 0-for-4 effort from the field.
Harvard countered with a 6-0 run to cut its deficit to six, 64-58, with 47 seconds to go, but junior guard Cecelia Collins went 6-for-6 from the free throw line the rest of the way to seal the Columbia win.
Collins led the way for Columbia with 20 points, including 9-for-10 from the free throw line, as well as eight rebounds and four assists. Sophomore forward Susie Rafu added 12 points, seven rebounds and three blocks in her sixth straight start.
Senior guard Nicole Stephens, who continues to play the role of super sub and late game lockdown defender for Columbia, totaled 11 points and six rebounds in 25 minutes of action.
Fellow senior guard, Abbey Hsu, who became Columbia’s all-time leading scorer on Friday night, put up 10 points, but did it on 3-for-10 shooting from the field and a 2-for-6 effort from the charity stripe.
Junior point guard Kitty Henderson was limited to 23 minutes due to picking up two fouls in the first three minutes of the game. But she still managed to net five points, four assists, three rebounds and three steals over 23 minutes.
On the Harvard side, sophomore forward Katie Krupa had a career-high four three-pointers and 25 points on 64% shooting (9-for-14). Lola Mullaney totaled 14 points on 70% shooting (7-for-10), but the Lions held her to a 0-for-1 effort from beyond the arc.
Junior point guard Harmoni Turner, who only trails Hsu in the Ancient Eight scoring race, was limited to only two points in the final 20 minutes and 11 for the afternoon.
A big key for Columbia was its inside dominance, reflected by advantages of 41-26 edge on the boards, 22-7 in second- chance points and 31-7 at the free throw line. If the Lions other than Collins did better than the 10-for-21 result at the charity stripe, the game could have been put away earlier.
As the season winds down and both teams look toward earning regular season and Ivy League Tournament titles, the biggest differences between the two are its depth and health.
While all teams deal with various levels of injuries throughout the lengthy season, the Lions’ starting lineup and main eight-player rotation have remained intact, allowing m coach Megan Griffith to give a boost to the lineup with Stephens, sophomore guard/forward Perri Page and first-year guard Riley Weiss.
Harvard, however, has been hit hard by the injury bug and been without two of its starters at a crucial part of the season.
Junior forward Elena Rodriguez (11.6 ppg, 55.1% FG, 7.3 rpg, 28.4 mpg) has been out since leaving the Feb. 2 Columbia game early in the third quarter, and rookie guard Karlee White (4.1 ppg, 21.5 mpg) has only seen 15 minutes of Ivy League action and missed the last nine games to injury.
Without those two, the Crimson have had to give more minutes to role players, and it was a major factor in the Lions’ 24-5 advantage in bench points.
If Harvard is going to make a run at Columbia or Princeton, either in the regular season or the Ivy League Tournament, second-year coach Carrie Moore is going to need both of those players healthy and back on the court as soon as possible.
While the men play a back-to-back schedule, the women’s division returns to a single-game slate next weekend.
The Lions, winners of six straight, will try to grab a tie for first place against Princeton (20-3, 10-0), the only team that has defeated Columbia in its last 17 contests, on Saturday afternoon in Morningside Heights. Since it is a Senior Day celebration for four players, including Hsu and Stephens, the Lions will need to control the emotions that got the better of it last March when they had to go to overtime to clinch a share of the Ivy title against Cornell.
While Harvard has two home games left on its schedule, the Crimson will hold its own Senior Day during next Saturday afternoon’s matchup with Brown (14-9, 5-5). A win by the Crimson will go a long way toward securing their bid to the Ivy tournament and boosting their confidence ahead of a March 1 trip to Princeton.