John Harvard's Journal despite the weather. But golia, to which she returned during sum- then, sailing around the mers growing up and where her distant last mark to head down- relatives remain nomadic herders, helped wind to the finish, the launch her into the sport. “Mongolians have boat flipped over. And the such a strong tie to nature,” she says. It is a rudder, which wasn’t tied country full of ancient beauty, where you down, fell out. They got can drive out into the desert or the steppe the boat upright, but then and look back 800 years. “A big part of the they couldn’t steer. Hud- nomadic culture is sustainability,” Jagda- dled in the hull together, gdorj says. “There isn’t really even a word they started to really feel for it, because there is no other way.” (This it then: the hail and the same experience led her to major in envi- cold and the wet. And the ronmental engineering.) lost race. She talks about the particular hill in the That’s when Jagdagdorj southeast that she and her family return to Back on terra firma: Jagdagdorj at the knew she was serious about sailing. She’d whenever they’re there, and the ritual they Harvard Sailing Center seen it at its worst and still came back for perform: the men climb to the top, while you have to be in unison and trust that the more. To her family, this was all somewhat the women circle the base three times. “It’s other person is with you; you have to be baffling. Born in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, she about respecting and being grateful for slamming your weight over at exactly the came to the United States with her parents the land you’re in.…And I think what’s re- same time, to give the boat the momentum at five years old, when her mother began ally beautiful about sailing is that you can’t it needs.” graduate school in journalism at the Uni- help but respect nature. You’re at the mercy She remembers a race at Tufts that soph- versity of Missouri (she’s now an instructor of the wind. You’re going out in a very tiny omore year, one of the last regattas of the there; Jagdagdorj’s father works for IBM). In carbon-fiber boat into large bodies of water. fall, when it began to hail. (“Unless there’s the early months after Jagdagdorj joined the People die sailing. Things can get out of con- lightning, we race,” she says. “We’ve sailed team, there were worried phone calls from trol really quickly.” She thinks about that, in snow, in really torrential downpours, in her grandmother back home in Mongolia; even now, whenever she pushes off the dock 50-mile-per-hour winds—in zero wind. her grandparents kept asking if she’d given into high wind or heavy waves. “There’s still Sometimes you’re wearing a drysuit and up sailing yet. She kept having to tell them that one flip of my stomach, like, ‘All right, an entire winter outfit underneath it, and she hadn’t. Then she had to tell them she’d here we go.’ You can’t ever get complacent you’re still frozen at the end of the day.”) Jag- been named co-captain. with water. And that’s a very Mongolian dagdorj and Sertl were doing well, going fast And yet her origins in landlocked Mon- attitude.” vlydialyle gibson

tenth-best recruiting class in 2016. A Hardwood Foundation After both teams lost in the Young basketball teams’ seesaw seasons tournament semifinals in March, what can the women (who finished the year 21-9 over- During the 2016-2017 season, a construc- goals for that growth: a twelfth Ivy League all, 8-6 Ivy) and the men (18-10 overall, 10-4 tion crew labored outside , championship under the leadership of wom- Ivy) learn from their up-and-down seasons the home of the Harvard basketball teams. en’s head coach Kathy Making incremental progress on a project Delaney-Smith, who to refurbish the 91-year-old building, the just completed her thir- workers were mostly waiting for the season ty-fifth season leading to end and the teams to vacate the premises, the Crimson (see “‘Act- so they could gut the second-oldest arena ing As If’ for 35 Seasons,” in college basketball (see harvardmag.com/ November-December lavietes-redo-16). 2016, page 31); and a deep The construction parallels the rebuild- NCAA tournament run ing projects under way this winter on the for the men, whose seven hardwood within. Both the women’s and freshmen were rated by men’s squads depended heavily on under- ESPN as the country’s classmen: the men started four freshmen, Katie Benzan ’20 and the women started two freshmen and was a first-team All-Ivy a sophomore. These talented young players honoree and led the were striving for Ivy League championships, team in scoring (13.4 points per game) but they were also laying the foundation for and assists (4.2 assists several years of team growth. Among the per game).

32 May - June 2017 Photographs courtesy of Harvard Athletic Communications

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After a middling 2015-2016 campaign during which the Crimson went 14-14 overall, Delaney-Smith welcomed a freshman class headlined by for- ward Jeannie Boehm— just the third McDon- ald’s All-American in conference history—and Katie Benzan, a shot two for 14 from the field highly touted point guard. Paired with a in the second period, the Ti- returning nucleus led by sophomore guard gers pulled away—ultimately, Madeline Raster and senior forward Destiny for a 68-47 victory. Among the factors sepa- Co-captain Destiny Nunley ’17 (above Nunley, the team had one of its most talent- rating the Quakers and Tigers from her own left) was an All-Ivy honorable mention designee. She and head coach Kathy ed and balanced rosters in recent memory. young players, the coach said, is the fact that Delaney-Smith (above) led the Crimson to During the first two-thirds of the season, “they believe in themselves.” a 21-9 overall record and a third-place the newcomers successfully demonstrated The players had a chance to bolster their finish in the Ivy League. their potential. The year started with a 103- confidence when the Crimson received an 87 loss at Minnesota, but then the Crim- at-large berth to the Women’s National In- The team began to find its footing in a son reeled off 16 consecutive wins, tying vitational Tournament (WNIT), the most stretch from early December through late the longest streak in school history. The prestigious tournament after the NCAAs. January, winning 10 of 11 games, including run included victories at Kansas (from the Harvard capitalized on that opportunity, a 57-56 win over Houston, one of the Crim- high-powered Big 12 Conference); against defeating the University of New Hampshire son’s best non-conference opponents, and a Temple, which earned a seven seed in the 69-56 in the opening round, before falling to sweep of Dartmouth and a victory at Cornell to start Ivy play. Still, Harvard’s lone loss during that period—82-71 at Vermont, an Harvard Hardwood: Review the men’s and women’s seasons in detail NCAA tournament team—portended the with game dispatches, analysis, and profiles at harvardmag.com/basketball. difficulty of winning close games against more experienced squads on the road. NCAA tournament; and four consecutive St. John’s University 62-57 in the round of 32. That problem recurred repeatedly. During wins to start conference play. “The takeaway for those kids coming back,” the remainder of the Ivy season, the Crim- Looking back, Delaney-Smith suggested said Delaney-Smith, “is you can play with son won all but one home game but lost that, ironically, the win streak may have anybody in the Ivy League and then some of three road contests—including the last two “hurt us more than it helped us.” It raised the stronger teams in the country.” games of the regular season, at Princeton the pressure and expectations on a young and Penn. Harvard’s four Ivy losses came squad. And it camouflaged some weakness- The women began the season on a tear, but by a combined 11 points and, as Amaker es: inconsistency, turnovers, and rushed the men lost their first four games against said, stemmed in part from bad luck: three decisions. The Crimson won five games by Division I competition, includ- five or fewer points and needed last-second ing an 80-70 defeat by Stanford heroics on several occasions—including a in the season opener in Shang- game-winner by Raster with 4.9 seconds hai. The setbacks left some won- left in a 70-68 home victory over Columbia. dering if Stemberg coach Tom- Those flaws came into sharper relief during my Amaker could get his large, the last month of the season when the Crim- talented roster—which includ- son lost six of 10 games, including four against ed proven All-Ivy talents point Penn and Princeton, the teams that finished guard Siyani Chambers ’16 (’17) ahead of Harvard in the Ivy standings. In and forward Zena Edosomwan those losses, a troubling trend emerged: if ’17, along with the highly regard- the Crimson’s shots were not falling, and ed freshmen—to coalesce. the other team made a run, Delaney-Smith’s Bryce Aiken ’20—Ivy League squad would fade. That happened in the Ivy Rookie of the Year and a first-team All-Ivy honoree— tournament semifinals against Princeton. led the Crimson with 28 points Harvard trailed by just one point (12-11) af- in the league tournament ter the first quarter, but when the Crimson semifinals against Yale. www.gocrimson.com Harvard Magazine 33 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 's Journal teams defeated the Crimson after hit- ting challenging last-second shots. Still, turnovers (18 in a 73-69 loss at Princeton in the penultimate game of the season), spells of ineffective play (the Crimson fell behind Princeton by nine or more points in both games), and a defense that was good but not great yielded a second-place finish for Harvard. The conference tournament gave the Crimson another opportunity to compete for a coveted NCAA berth. Coach Tommy Amaker (above) and co-captain Siyani But many of the same problems that Chambers ’16 (’17), a first- undid the team in the regular season team All-Ivy honoree (right), reappeared in a 73-71 loss to Yale in the led a young Crimson squad semifinals. The players struggled to de- to a second-place finish in the Ivy League before falling fend the paint; in the second half, the to Yale in the conference offense was anemic except for Bryce tournament semifinals. Aiken ’20, who scored 28 points; and although Harvard had just five turnovers, and four starters. The men lose Edosomwan fans can look forward not only to more it gave the ball away on the final possession. and Chambers, who garnered first-team modern amenities but also to two teams, Although both teams fell short of this all-conference honors, but bring back four with talented and tested nuclei, looking to year’s goals, the women return Benzan, a freshmen starters, including their top two make their own improvement to the spiffed- first-team All-Ivy honoree; Boehm, who had scorers, Aiken and Seth Towns ’20. When up arena: a pair of championship banners. seven blocks against St. John’s in the WNIT; the refurbished Lavietes Pavilion reopens, vdavid l. tannenwald

Fencing Sports in Brief After a regular season during which both men’s and women’s fencing won trophies—the tenth for each (Harvard has Men’s Hockey won the competition every year since it began)—the program Blazing through what a Globe headline deemed a “season sent 11 athletes to the NCAA tournament in Indianapolis, Indi- of redemption,” the men’s hockey team in late March, for the first ana, in late March. Sophomore Eli Dershwitz, a 2016 Olympian, time in 23 years, secured its return to the Frozen Four, the NCAA won an individual championship in men’s sabre, and Harvard semifinals, with a 3-2 win over Air Force in the tournament’s finished fifth overall, one spot behind rival Princeton. Senior second round. That Adrian Jarocki, the defending national champion in women’s sa- triumph, before a bre, took fifth place this year. sold-out crowd in Prov­idence, Rhode Swimming and Diving Island, capped a re- Led by freshman standout swimmer Dean Farris, men’s swim- markable six weeks ming and diving routed its opponents to win the Ivy League cham- that saw the Crim- pionship in mid March, after an unbeaten regular season. Ulen- son bring home its Brooks head coach Kevin Tyrrell was named Ivy coach of the first Beanpot trophy year. Four swimmers and five relay teams went to the NCAA since 1993, close out tournament, where Farris finished fourth behind a trio of former the regular season Olympians in the 200 freestyle. Men’s swimming finished twenty- with an unbroken seventh overall.

MADDIE MEYER/GETTYMADDIE IMAGES string of wins and a Women’s swimming and diving sent two athletes to the NCAA In the momentum-building Beanpot share of the confer- tournament: first-year swimmer Mikaela Dahlke, who competed victory: Crimson forward Alexander ence title, and then in three events and finished thirty-sixth overall, and junior diver Kerfoot skates against . capture the Eastern Jing Leung, who came in thirty-second after defending her title College Athletic Conference championship. Four players—for- as NCAA Zone A platform-dive champ. With strong perfor- wards Ryan Donato ’19 and Alexander Kerfoot ’17, defenseman mances by Dahlke, Leung, and sophomore swimmers Brittany ’20, and goalie Merrick Madsen ’18—earned all-confer- Usinger and Meagan Popp, the women’s team took second place ence honors. The team was warming up for its first Frozen Four in the Ivy League championship, finishing just behind Yale and contest, on April 6, against Minnesota Duluth, at the United Cen- crushing third- and fourth-place finishers Penn and Princeton. ter in Chicago as the magazine went to press. vlydialyle gibson

34 May - June 2017

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