The Harvard women’s basketball team used an efficient fourth quarter to overcome a tough challenge from Brown on Saturday afternoon at Lavietes Pavilion.
With the 80-73 victory, the Crimson (15-9, 8-3 Ivy) captured the third ticket to next month’s Ivy League Tournament at Levien Gym. It’ll be the third straight conference postseason appearance for Harvard and the sixth overall.
The Bears (14-10, 5-6), looking for their first Ivy Madness berth since the inaugural tournament in 2017, fell back into a tie with Penn. Both teams remain one game ahead of Yale with three games left in the regular season.
The two teams kept things close over the opening ten minutes with Brown finishing the quarter up 18-17.
After Brown sophomore guard Grace Arnolie hit a jumper to put her team up by three in the first minute of the second quarter, the Crimson scored 24 of the game’s next 28 points to take a commanding 41-24 lead with two and a half minutes to go.
The Bears regrouped and closed out the half on a 11-4 run to make it a 45-35 contest in favor of the Crimson.
Harvard took control of the game on the strength of its inside game, hitting 71% of its two-pointers (10-for-14) in the second quarter, grabbing 43% more rebounds and scoring 12 more points in the paint.
Brown started the second half as well as it ended the first, going on a 16-5 over the first six minutes.
By the time Arnolie hit her third triple of the third quarter, her Bears had reclaimed the lead, 51-50.
First-year forward Abigail Wright came off the bench to give Harvard a spark, scoring the next six points to put the hosts up by five with just over two minutes to go in the third frame.
A Brown free throw a minute later closed out the scoring in the third frame and Harvard was up 56-52 with 10 minutes left in regulation.
Arnolie again led the way for the Bears, hitting an and-one three-pointer off a left baseline jumper to knot the score at 57 with 8:40 on the clock.
The Crimson went on a 7-2 run, punctuated by a Lola Mullaney triple from the right baseline, to put Harvard back on top, 64-59.
With 4:35 left in the quarter, Brown’s sophomore forward Ada Anamekwe drove the lane for a layup to cut the deficit to three, but she landed awkwardly on her left knee, fell to the ground after a few tentative steps and had to be helped off the court.
Senior guard Kyla Jones hit a left-handed layup to make it a one-point game, but Harvard went on a quick 10-2 run to make it 74-65 with two minutes to go.
During that vital stretch, first-year guard Karlee White, who hadn’t played since the conference opener against Yale on Jan. 6, hit two three-pointers from the right baseline and a fastbreak layup.
After getting her left knee bandaged, Anamekwe returned to action with three free throws, two offensive rebounds, a steal and breakaway layup to help the Bears cut the lead to three, 76-73, with 30 seconds left.
Harvard’s leading scorer, junior guard Harmoni Turner, was fouled and hit both free throws to make it a two-possession game. On the next trip up the court, Anamekwe’s contested layup hit the rim and was rebounded by the Crimson and the game was effectively over.
In that crucial final frame, the Bears flipped the script from the second quarter, shooting 62% from two, grabbing 64% of the available rebounds, netting seven more second chance points and scoring six more points in the paint. Unfortunately, Bruno went 0-for-6 from the three-point line.
While Harvard had 12 less attempts than Brown over the last ten minutes, the Crimson shot 78%, sinking all four of their two-pointers and 3-for-5 from beyond the arc.
Mullaney and Turner were the leading scorers for the victors, with 24 and 21 points, respectively.
The Harvard bench, which outscored Brown 31-6, was led by first-year guard Abigail Wright’s 18 and White’s 11. In addition, junior guard Elena Rodriguez, who hadn’t played since leaving in the third quarter at Columbia on Feb. 2, came off the bench to add two points, four rebounds and three assists in 23 minutes of action.
Arnolie finished with 24 points, five assists, three rebounds and two steals, while Anamekwe totaled 16 points and 14 rebounds for her first career double-double.
With three games left in the regular season, Harvard finds itself two games behind league leading Princeton and Columbia. With the return of White and Rodriguez, two key members of the team’s normal starting lineup, Carrie Moore’s Crimson get a big chance to even the season series with Princeton in a matchup at Jadwin Gymnasium Friday at 5 p.m.
Brown, which split the season series with Penn and took game one against Yale, will finish the year with a three-game homestand at the Pizzitola Sports Center. First up for Monique LeBlanc’s Bears is a matchup with Columbia Friday at 4 p.m.