The Pride started the second on a 10-2 run, but once again, the Crimson had an answer. Clark hit a layup off an inbounds, junior Miriam Rutzen found classmate Emma Golen with a pretty backdoor pass, and Clark hit an NBA-range three from the top of the key to extend the Crimson lead back to 12.

A Lippert long ball made it 63-50 with nine minutes to go before Hofstra again clawed its way back with a 9-0 spurt capped by a Bond jumper. Berry answered with a transition three, and after a Bond layup, Berry found Clark open at the top of the key for another triple to take the 69-61 lead.

But Harvard turned it over on back-to-back possessions, and moments later, the lead was back down to four. Loper’s three got the Pride as close as one, but it never was able to pull ahead.

“Those comebacks are part of the game,” Delaney-Smith explained. “They threw a zone at us, which is something that set us back on our heels.... We started to let them have more boards than I wanted, we started walking the ball up the floor instead of pushing the ball up the floor. That sort of took us out of the game that had gotten us the 10-point lead.”

Clark finished with 23 and seven rebounds, as she and Berry combined for two-thirds of the Crimson’s points. Evans, an All-American last season, had 24 and 16 for Hofstra in a losing effort, as Harvard was able to win despite 25 turnovers thanks to a 47-percent shooting night from the field.

“This is the kind of team we don’t see that much,” Delaney-Smith said. “I thought we were undersized; we did as good a job you can do on [Evans] as mismatched as we were.... I was very, very proud of the team effort.”

—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.