“The first round, she’d hit putts that would go right over the edge, and I’d say, ‘Just keep on hitting putts like that, and they will fall,’” Rhoads said. “And they didn’t fall at all in the first round. [In] the second, she started doing the same thing.”

But for Hu and the rest of the Crimson, everything clicked on Sunday.

Aided in part by the easier weather, Harvard dropped a full 14 strokes from its Saturday total. Kabasakalis and Hu tied for the low score on the team, as both players finished +1.

Hu had one of the best rounds of the year going, as she was -3 after 14 holes. But a triple bogey on the par-3 15th put the freshman back at even par, and she finished the day +1.

“Bonnie killed it today,” Kabasakalis said. “She struggled a little bit the first two days, but she came back in a big way today.”

Over the three days, Hu finished tied for 12th.

Kabasakalis’ +1 on Sunday gave her sole possession of second place individually. Though she averaged 6.53 strokes above-par during the season’s earlier matches, the senior finished +8 over the three rounds of the Ivy League Championship.

The rest of the team had strong finishes as well. Cho shot a 74 and finished in 10th place overall with a three-day total of +14. Junior Jane Lee finished with a 75 on Sunday, and freshman Fritzi Reuter came in with a team-high 78.

But the strong effort on Sunday wasn’t quite enough. The Bulldogs shot just +5 on the tournament’s final day, giving the team a four-stroke victory over the Crimson.

For Harvard, coming so close to victory made the second-place finish sting that much more.

“Yale played really well when they needed to today,” Rhoads said. “We got beat, which is better than beating yourselves, but it’s hard to come up only a couple shots short at the end of a long season.”

—Staff writer Robert S. Samuels can be reached at robertsamuels@college.harvard.edu.