Sturdy led an explosive Crimson attack with 18 points, and Johnson tacked on 10 points and 14 rebounds for Harvard, including a crucial free-throw with 10.8 seconds left on the clock that gave the Crimson its biggest lead of the game at 58-45.

For the Big Red, senior forward Kristie Riccio, junior guard Janice Arcilla, and sophomore guard Deborah Stevens each contributed nine points for Cornell.

Harvard and Cornell exchanged leads throughout the game. With 4:34 left in the first half, Johnson broke an 18-all tie with a three-point play, but two successful free throw attempts by the Big Red's Jennifer Linker cut the Crimson's advantage to one point.

With Harvard grasping on to a slim one-point lead, the Crimson quickly went on a 7-0 run, sparked by a three-pointer from Egelhoff that gave Harvard a 28-20 lead with 1:35 left in the first half. The Crimson took a 29-24 lead into the locker room but remained unsatisfied with its first-half effort.

"The rims at Cornell were really small, and our shots just weren't falling at first," Kelley said. "We weren't getting the offensive rebounds that we needed during the first half, so in the second half, we focused on our rebounding."

With 15:15 remaining in the game, a free throw by Johnson gave the Crimson a 32-24 lead, but Cornell then exploded on a 12-4 run, tying the game at 36-all on a driving layup by sophomore guard Deborah Stevens with 7:53 left on the clock.

Only twelve seconds later, the Crimson regained its lead when Johnson connected on both ends of a one-and-one. Over the final 6:39 of the game, Harvard outscored Cornell 20-10, and with 2:27 left, Sturdy hit a critical jumper that gave the Crimson a 53-43 lead and sealed the victory.

The Crimson's second-half focus on rebounding and defense paid off at the end. Harvard held a 14-3 scoring advantage over Cornell off of offensive rebounds and limited the Big Red offense to a 29.3 field goal percentage for the game.