“There was a stretch of eight minutes in the second half when Kelly got hot when I thought our intensity was not good,” Delaney-Smith said. “I was displeased that we let Brown back in to the game and didn’t find [Kelly] in our zone on defense.”
Yet Peljto made sure Brown would get no closer. The junior nailed a clutch three-pointer with 1:39 remaining to extend Harvard’s lead to eight. She then made three consecutive free throws to ice the win for the Crimson. Peljto finished with a game-high 27 points and pulled down 13 rebounds for her sixth double-double of the season.
“Hana did a great job in the second half, defensively too,” Tubridy said. “She picked up rebounds and we didn’t allow [Brown center] Nyema Mitchell to dominate the paint.”
Mitchell finished the game with nine points on 4 of 12 shooting, well below her average of 15 ppg.
—Staff writer Alex M. Sherman can be reached at sherman@fas.harvard.edu.