With the score knotted at 72 and 5.8 ticks left on the clock, Penn reserve forward Katie Kilker went to the free throw line for two shots. She missed the first badly, but made the second to push the Quakers past host Harvard, 73-72, Friday night at Lavietes Pavilion.

“We were obviously very disappointed, to be so close in this game and be in control for most of it and then lose it like that, that’s heartbreaking,” co-captain Hana Peljto said.

Just after Penn star forward Jewel Clark fouled out with a little under seven minutes to play, a pair of Kilker free throws granted the Quakers (10-6, 4-0 Ivy) its largest lead of the game, a 67-56 advantage.

The two-headed beast of foul trouble and aggressive Crimson defense limited Clark, who was averaging 20 points and nine rebounds per game, to just nine points and three boards.

“She is their go-to [player], she is their key person,” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said.

The Crimson (8-9, 1-3) was able to quickly capitalize with Penn’s leader on the bench.

After making the first of a one-and-one, sophomore forward Kate Mannering rebounded her miss and dished the ball to co-captain Hana Peljto, who found co-captain Bev Moore spotting up for a three.

Junior center Reka Cserny then went on a personal 7-0 run, with a pair of free throws, a three-pointer and a floating 10-footer from the left side to even the score at 67. Harvard grabbed the lead on its next possession as Peljto banked in a driving layup after pumping mid-air around a Penn defender.

But the Quakers, led by their bench, would not go away. Penn reserve guard Cat Makarewich buried a three-pointer from the top of the arc—her third of the game—to give the Quakers the lead back at 70-69 with 2:15 remaining.

Moore was swift with a response of her own—a three from the left wing that put the Crimson up two with two minutes to play.

“Kathy has kind of been on me to step up and be more of a shooter, because she has a lot of confidence in my shot,” Moore said. “I was really just trying to step up and be confident in my shot and at those key moments someone has to step up and do it.”

The Penn bench, which out-scored Harvard’s reserves 41 to four, again stepped up, with backup forward Monica Naltner leveling the score at 72 with a short jumper in the lane.

On the Crimson’s next chance to take the lead, Pejlto missed a 15-footer along the right baseline and was whistled for a questionable reach-in foul while struggling with Kilker for the rebound.

“It was a bad call,” Delaney-Smith said. “With five seconds to go, you should probably not call that.”

With the Quakers in the double-bonus, Kilker went to the line for her game-winning free throw.