“We had a timeout...when we decided what defense we were going to play,” Cserny said. “We started to switch on all screens so Penn didn’t know what we were going to play.”

With only 10 seconds left, Rhoads once again held the ball for Penn and launched a shot from behind that arc—that was blocked by Peljto.

After rejecting the Quakers’ final shot, Peljto passed the ball to Bell, who made an easy layup.

“I was a little overly excited,” Bell said. “I was kind of thinking do I take the layup or do I hold it? I saw my teammates on the bench and I thought, it’s going in.”

After struggling with consistency throughout the season, Harvard has managed two complete games this weekend. The difference?

“Good defense,” Bell said. “That has been our downfall pretty much the whole season.”

At the start of the game, the Crimson was off and running—literally. Harvard went on an 8-2 run and had a 24-14 lead halfway through the first period. Penn answered with a 12-0 rally and closed the gap to 39-37 by halftime.

The Crimson and the Quakers exchanged the lead six times in the second frame, until Peljto sealed the win in the final minutes. Peljto finished the game with 19 points.

Senior point guard Bev Moore completed an outstanding weekend from behind the arc, as she registered a season-high 14 points and went 4-6 from three-point land on Saturday.

In addition to her superior offense, Cserny hurt the Quakers on defense. The junior, who leads the league in steals, tallied five swipes and two blocks against Penn, and four steals and a block against Princeton on Friday.

HARVARD 68, PRINCETON 53

When you look at Peljto’s statistics, it’s easy to see why Harvard had a 35-19 lead over the Tigers after the first half at Jadwin Gymnasium on Friday night.

Peljto notched 15 points and 10 boards by halftime, on her way to 25 and 12, respectively, for the game.

But the Crimson did not begin the game as auspiciously as the halftime score would indicate.

“We had some bad turnovers in the first few minutes so they could score in transition, but after that we took care of the ball,” Cserny said. “During the last couple minutes, they tried to press us, and we had some more turnovers, but for the most part we handled it well.”