PHILADELPHIA--With the Ivy season winding down and two of its five original starters injured, the Harvard women's basketball team knew it would be a difficult task to come away with a weekend sweep on the road against Princeton and Penn.

The situation worsened when Crimson sophomore point guard Jenn Monti went down with an ankle injury six minutes into Friday night's game against Princeton. It immediately became clear that any kind of victory on the weekend would take a first-rate effort from the Harvard bench.

And the Crimson reserves came through. Harvard split the weekend, which was just enough to keep pace with the rest of the Ivy League.

Against Princeton (7-18, 4-7 Ivy), Harvard (15-8, 8-3) struggled down the stretch, scoring just one field goal in the last ten minutes. But the one basket, a three-pointer by senior forward Courtney Egelhoff with 36.4 seconds left, gave the Crimson the lead for good in a 67-63 win.

Then against Penn (17-8, 8-3 Ivy), Harvard saw limited playing time from Monti and Johnson, but neither player could make up for the horrific final two minutes of the first half when Harvard turned the ball over three consecutive times against the press and watched a two-point gap quickly expand into a 12-point deficit.

The Crimson was never able to recover. Harvard had its chances, but poor free-throw shooting kept the Crimson within striking distance, as Penn went on to win 79-66.

Despite the loss, Harvard did not lose any ground on first-place Dartmouth (17-7, 9-2) or Penn for the weekend as a whole because the Big Green defeated the Quakers 75-71 on Friday night but then struggled against Princeton the next day in a 64-51 loss, which ended an 11-game win streak.

The Tiger upset capped off a wild weekend in the Ivy League in which the only team to make it through unscathed was Brown, who had been winless up until a week ago.

"Welcome the Ivy League," Harvard Coach Kathy-Delaney Smith said. "It doesn't surprise me a bit. Student-athletes have this enormous pride, and they must win even when they're 0-7. They're proud, confident, and they don't stop playing."