A win is a win, but Friday night’s 57-52 triumph for Harvard women’s basketball (2-1) was not pretty. The Crimson seemed determined to make its own life as hard as possible, turning a comfortable lead into an ultimately nail-biting win over Samford (1-2) at Lavietes Pavilion.

“It wasn’t our best game, but we got the [win], which is what matters most,” said freshman point guard Katie Benzan, tied for the game’s lead scorer with 16 points.

On a weekend where the football team fell to Yale in “The Game,” the women’s basketball team struggled to put away another set of Bulldogs. Despite trailing by as many as 14 points late in the third quarter, Samford took advantage of loose play from Harvard to cut the lead to 1 midway through the final quarter.

Late buckets from captain Destiny Nunley and junior forward Kirby Porter helped along with two high-pressure Benzan free throws saved the Crimson’s blushes despite the visitors’ late run.

“We got outworked. Every player on the other team outworked us pretty consistently throughout the whole game,” said head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith, who cut a frustrated figure after the game. “This was as bad as our worst practice. I’m pretty disappointed in my team, I did not expect them to do this.”

Harvard started well, taking advantage of space on the outside as the Bulldogs’ guards collapsed into the paint to deny the Crimson’s forwards, Nunley and freshman Jeannie Boehm, the opportunity to catch and turn. The bench was especially effective late in the first quarter, with sophomore guard Madeline Raster hitting a three before junior forward Taylor Rooks put in a couple of baskets to stretch the home team’s lead to seven.

Delaney-Smith continued rotating heavily to keep players fresh, and Harvard was active on defense; Samford did not record its first field goal of the second quarter until the 4:16 mark, a triple by leading scorer Hannah Nichols sandwiched between a pair of Benzan threes. The Crimson continued to struggle inside, though, recording just seven two-point field goals in the first half. Six first-half three-pointers, however, ensured that the home side entered the halftime locker room with a 32-23 lead.

“Yes [our forwards] were having a hard game inside, but [Samford] was doubling down,” Benzan said, “so [the forwards] weren’t going to have their best game and we knew that coming in. We knew we had to look for the kickout and maybe get a drive or hit a three.”

The third quarter continued in similar fashion, with the Bulldogs unable to find any sort of offensive consistency. A pair of Benzan free throws after her fourth three-pointer of the game gave Harvard a 14-point lead, its largest lead of the game, with just 1:11 remaining in the frame.

The fourth quarter, however, saw a complete reversal of momentum. Junior guard Kassidy Belvins scored six points in the first three minutes of the quarter as part of a 13-2 run by the visitors, cutting the Crimson’s lead to 50-49.

With the game on a knife edge, Nunley took matters into her own hands, stealing an inbounds pass and then going down the floor and knocking in a crucial jumper. Porter would then hit a layup to stretch Harvard’s lead to six, and although Belvins’ three-pointer gave the visitors a brief glimpse of hope with seven seconds remaining, Benzan calmly strolled stroked both free throws at the line to put the game to the bed.

Despite the win and gritty final minutes, Delaney-Smith was not appeased.

“Poor execution on offense, very grey early shot selection,” the thirty-five year program head remarked. “Nothing, no connection between players, nothing. There’s nothing I recognized about my team tonight.”

—Staff writer Stuart Johnson can be reached at stuartjohnson@college.harvard.edu.