The Harvard women’s basketball team finally got the crowd that it deserved.

And so the Crimson returned the favor to the raucous 1,934 strong at Lavietes Pavilion by taking their breath away.

Facing a 15-point deficit with only 10:45 left in last night’s title-clincher against Dartmouth (16-10, 12-2 Ivy), Harvard (20-7, 12-2) ripped off a 26-4 run in less than eight minutes and willed itself to a 70-67 victory—and with it, a share of the Ivy League championship.

“Nothing like home court advantage,” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said.

The showcase was the culmination of weeks of dominant play by the Ivy League’s best two teams. So it was only appropriate when the Ivy League’s best player, the incomparable Reka Cserny, took over in the end.

Besieged by an aggressive man-to-man defense, Harvard’s star center managed only six points in the first half and found little room in the lane.

“Our shot selection was the worst all year, in my opinion, in the first half,” Delaney-Smith said of her squad, which entered the night leading the Ivies in shooting but finished at 21.6 percent from the field in that frame. “Including Reka, which is highly unusual that I’d even be saying that.”

“Reka,” she added, “had been stopped for too many minutes.”

In the meantime, Harvard got a little help from Maureen McCaffery. The junior forward sparked the Crimson run shortly after a Jeannie Cullen jumper gave the Big Green a 51-36 lead with 10:45.

McCaffery answered with five straight points—including an electrifying three-pointer from the right side—as Harvard posted a 10-0 run over the next 2:43 while the crowd roared.

Overall, the junior from Hillsborough, Calif., finished with 16 points, shot four-of-eight from three-point range, and grabbed eight crucial rebounds.

“She can’t miss,” Cserny said. “Maybe the other teams don’t know it yet, but we all know.”

Delaney-Smith said Cserny and guard Katie Murphy, who finished with seven points and six rebounds, remained a special motivation to the younger players. After all, the two seniors faced, potentially, the closing minutes of their Harvard careers.

“[The players] love the two seniors. They were going to do everything they could not to let it slip out of their hands,” Delaney-Smith said. “Maureen epitomizes that emotion.”

And then Cserny took over the game.