When the going gets tough, the Harvard women's basketball team should get going.

The Crimson has both depth and size, and that combination is lethal when implemented correctly--run, gun, rotate, repeat--as it was for half of last night's 54-45 home win over New Hampshire.

After losing its first three games of the season--the first time that has happened since 1989-90--the Crimson came out determined to avoid a second-rate start to a season that promised to be first-rate. Freshman forward Hana Peltjo, who will be consistently first-rate once she learns Harvard's triangle offense and settles into Division I basketball, led the way with 17 points and a for-now career-high 15 rebounds.

The key to Harvard's victory was definitely not the offense, which turned the ball over 25 times in the game, including 17 giveaways in the second half, and shot 35.3 percent from the floor.

Despite what Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said after the game, the defense was not the key either, even though the Harvard held UNH to 24.5 percent for the game.

Rather, it was the team's energy, which fed both the offense and defense for roughly 20 minutes in the middle of the game. When a team is energetic and playing without thinking about playing, the opponent often becomes lost, confused, frustrated and tired. The more you have fun, the less the other team does.

Quite simply, when all cylinders were running last night, Harvard stymied UNH on defense and blew past the Wildcats on offense. But when the game slowed down, so too did the Crimson.

"If we run, I think we are unstoppable," Peltjo said.