NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Yale women's basketball team entered Saturday's game vs. Columbia in third place in the Ivy League standings, a game ahead of the Lions -- who were tied with Harvard for the fourth and final tournament spot. A win could have given the Bulldogs some all-important breathing room, but instead a fired-up Columbia team helped create a logjam in the middle of the standings by topping Yale 74-65. The Bulldogs nearly rallied from a 17 point deficit, getting within two with 8:20 to play, but Columbia pulled away thanks to some late three-pointers. Sophomore forward
Camilla Emsbo finished with 28 points, one shy of her career high.
A boisterous crowd, including both schools' bands, was on hand for the Bulldogs' annual "Play4Kay Pink Game", raising funds for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. Those fans saw a back-and-forth affair in which Columbia outscored Yale 39-25 in the first half and Yale outscored Columbia 40-35 in the second.
"These were two really, really good Ivy League basketball teams," said
Allison Guth, Yale's Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women's Basketball. "We're going to kick ourselves for the way we started that game. But I can't say anything more about our kids' fight and the way they responded in the second half."
Columbia (15-8, 6-4 Ivy League) came into the game averaging nearly 74 points per game in Ivy games -- best in the league. That put Yale's defense, which had held four straight opponents to 55 points or less, to the test. The Lions started hot, shooting 50 percent in the first half and connecting on four three-pointers. They took a 17 point lead twice during the second quarter, through the Bulldogs cut it to 14 by halftime.
Yale (16-7, 6-4 Ivy League) outscored Columbia 18-10 in the third and carried that momentum into the start of the fourth. The Bulldogs got within two on a pair of free throws by senior guard
Roxy Barahman with 8:54 left -- part of a 10-for-11 night from the line for Yale. After the Lions scored, Emsbo answered with a jumper to get the Bulldogs within 51-49. But within a stretch of less than three minutes after that Columbia got three-pointers from guard/forward Sienna Durr, guard Abbey Hsu and guard Mikayla Markham to establish a seven-point lead. And after the Bulldogs scored four straight, Hsu answered with another three-pointer at the 3:53 mark. Yale got no closer than six the rest of the way.
After limiting the Lions to 26 percent shooting from three-point range in the teams' first meeting -- an 85-60 Yale win Jan. 31 -- on Saturday the Bulldogs were hurt by Columbia shooting 41 percent from three.
Emsbo, who added six rebounds to her 28 points, was a bright spot for Yale.
"She was tremendous," said Guth. "It wasn't just what she did on the floor. It was what she did in the huddles; her leadership, grit and grind."
Senior forward
Megan Gorman added a double-double, with 11 points and 10 rebounds. That was the second double-double in the last three games for Yale's captain.
The loss drops Yale into a tie for third with Columbia, and both teams have a one-game edge on fifth-place Harvard. While the Crimson and Lions square off next Friday in Cambridge, Yale heads south to take on No. 25 Princeton. With four of the top five teams in the league thus facing off, that night will be another opportunity for a team like Yale to start emerging from the pack.
"We've made it more interesting," said Guth of the race for tournament spots. "I believe in these guys and I know they believe in themselves. We can be really good. Now we need to go out and prove it."
Social Media
