Victories over Cornell and Brown in the consolation rounds of the Ivy tournament at Dartmouth this weekend gave the Harvard women's basketball team its longest, or, "winning streak" of the season.
A two-game winning streak--nothing to write home to Ma about, right? Well consider that the hoopsters' longest string of victories before this weekend could be counted on one hand by someone missing four fingers, and two straight wins seems like something they can be proud of.
Harvard plastered Cornell, 65-26, yesterday and managed a surprising 70-55 win over a tough squad from Brown Saturday. Dartmouth took first place in the tourney, followed by Princeton, UPenn and Yale, Harvard--seeded sixth--finished fifth overall.
The Crimson victories, which followed the team's disappointing 57-54 loss Friday night at the hands of Princeton, gave the Crimson an 8-18 final season record.
Crimson center Elame Holpuch showed the kind of domineering scoring and rebounding in the wins that she demonstrated all season, leading Harvard in scoring and rebounding in both games and picking up a pair of University records along the way.
Holpuch's 26 points--three shy of Harvard's single-game record--and 14 rebounds in yesterday's win against the Big Red sent her over the top in season scoring and rebounding. Her 314 points and 219 bounds on the year eclipsed marks she set last year of 290 and 210, respectively.
Freshman Kathleen Carroll, brought up from the J.V. for the tourney, was Harvard's second leading scorer in that game with eight, and Nancy Boutilier--returning after a four-game layoff following an ankle injury--and Ann Scannell chipped in six each.
The win over Cornell was expected--the hoopsters beat the Big Red, 58-39, earlier this season--but the victory over Brown Saturday morning came as something of a surprise.
"We lost to them this season," Boutilier said yesterday, "so beating them was really great for us."
Boutilier added that the weekend wins gave the hoopsters--all of whom will return next year--a positive outlook for the future. "This season had a lot of ups and downs, and many times there were more downs than ups, but this weekend everything came together. If we can pick up. where we left off, we'll be in good shape."
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