“One of the things was to stop their threes and buckle down on defense and get one stop at a time,” Lippert said. “Just come out with momentum and keep it for the rest of the half. Have no letdowns and just take it on our home court and defend our house.”

The Crimson came out of halftime and responded with a 5-0 run while playing strong defense, holding the Bears scoreless for the first three minutes and 40 seconds of the half.

After Brown’s first bucket by Hannah Passafuime’s three-pointer, Harvard went on a 10-3 run, which pushed the lead to 50-40 with 13:34 remaining in the game.

But once again, the Bears responded to the Crimson’ streak with an Aileeen Daniels three-point play and a Nickel trey, cutting the score, 50-46.

“I think it was a game of runs,” Matera said. “We had opportunities where we brought the lead to double digits, and then they would bring the score back down to four to six point. So we were looking to extend the lead at those times where we got it to like 10 or 13 points, and it just didn’t happen. They played a really hard game, and we weathered their runs.”

Another Harvard run pushed the score to 57-47 with 9:45 left in the period. Brown never got within six points the rest of the night, keyed by strong free-throw shooting from Berry, who made 5-of-6 down the stretch to ensure the victory.

“I’m proud; I thought we played like champions,” Delaney-Smith said. “I thought that we handled the pressure and felt that we came together. I loved the fact that we took care of the ball and did not have a lot turnovers; we took good shots for the most part, and our defense was tough.”