The next Crimson trip down the floor resulted in a turnover and McBride, a 93-percent free-throw shooter was fouled once again. Sinking both ends of the one-and-one, she pushed her team’s lead to 68-58.

After the sloppy turnovers around the two-minute mark, Harvard would make a few last-gasp efforts to get back in the game but could never get any closer than seven after a three-pointer by junior Laura Barnard with 1:12 to go closed it to 71-64.

At the break, the ’Cuse held a firm 35-29 lead over the Crimson on the strength of Nwagbo’s first half ten points and five rebounds. The Crimson couldn_t seem to come up with an answer for Nwagbo who dominated the defensive area below the basket for Syracuse.

The difference in the first half was Syracuse’s ability to control the ball. The Orangewomen turned the ball over two times in the entire first half, as compared to Harvard’s ten giveaways.

With Nwagbo patrolling the area under the hoop, the Crimson was forced to push the ball outside and take some longer range shots. Harvard put up 16 first-half threes, making six of them. Both Monti and Peljto notched two treys before the first-half buzzer and kept the Crimson in the ball game at the break.

Harvard was hurt by the absence of Cserny for much of the first half. She received her second foul less than eight minutes into the game and was forced to the bench for precautionary reasons. It was the second straight game that Cserny had suffered foul trouble early in the first half.

Harvard 66, Northeastern 62

BOSTON, MA—Harvard came back from a 16-point late first-half deficit to defeat Northeastern 66-62 on Dec. 15.

The Crimson, who had defeated Rhode Island four days earlier despite an eight-point halftime deficit, acknowledged that it can’t expect to continue that pattern all season.

“We won’t win bigger games if we don’t play a full game,” Monti said. “What we did today, you can’t do that against Penn or Dartmouth.”

Harvard trailed Northeastern (1-6) 46-33 at halftime but outscored the Huskies 33-16 in the second half and limited them to just 19.2 percent shooting. Northeastern sophomore forward Melissa Kowalski, who exploded for 20 points in the first half, was held to just two points in the second half.

“We have a tendency to start slow with a lack of defensive intensity,” said Peljto, who scored a team-high 16 points. “This is typical of every game we play. We’re going have to learn to pick it up before the Ivy season begins.”

Fittingly, Harvard took its first lead of the afternoon on a rebound and putback by Tubridy, whose 12 clutch rebounds and 14 points kept the Crimson in the game. That lead, which came with 7:29 left, was bolstered by three-pointers from Monti and Peljto, who added another outside jumper with three minutes left to extend the Crimson lead to 63-56.

The Huskies cut the deficit to 64-62 on a third-chance layup with 21 seconds left, but the Crimson played out the remainder of the game to perfection. In an impressive display of keep-away, Peljto, Tubridy, Dunham and Cserny cycled the ball around the perimeter as the Huskies tried in vain to foul. Dunham was finally caught, but not before 19 seconds had run off the clock. Her two free throws iced the game.

Dunham, who started in place of injured co-captain Katie Gates for the second game in a row, also hit a crucial coast-to-coast layup in the final minute of the first half to cut the peak Husky lead of 16 down to 14.