CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – For the final three quarters of Saturday's Ivy League opener at Harvard, the Yale women's basketball team played almost evenly with the Crimson – Harvard outscored the Bulldogs 49-45. But what could have been a close battle was instead determined largely by the first quarter of the game, when the Crimson outscored Yale 24-9. The Bulldogs were never able to get closer than 12 after that, despite a career-high 18 points from junior forward
Grace Thybulle.
"I told the team, the second quarter we lost by three and the second half we lost by one," said
Dalila Eshe, Yale's Joel E. Smilow Head Coach of Women's Basketball. "This game was all about showing up and being ready. We don't score at a high enough clip to be able to absorb a quarter like the first quarter, otherwise the score could have been flipped."
The biggest story of the day came before the game began, with Harvard star Harmoni Turner coming out for warmups. Turner, the Crimson's leading scorer, had been out since suffering an injury in the game against Michigan Dec. 2; Harvard had gone 2-3 without her.
Turner quickly made it clear that she is back in game shape. She scored Harvard's first 10 points and helped the Crimson build an early 12-2 lead.
Yale regrouped in the second quarter, limiting Harvard to 14 points, but the Bulldogs could not cut into their deficit. The Crimson led 38-20 at halftime.
The Bulldogs wound up outscoring Harvard 13-11 in the third, limiting the Crimson to a 5-for-17 (.294) shooting percentage in that quarter. A three-pointer by sophomore guard
Kiley Capstraw pulled Yale within 13 with 4:58 left, but Harvard answered with five straight points to keep the Bulldogs at bay.
After Turner opened the fourth quarter with a pull-up jumper, Yale (3-11, 0-1 Ivy League) reeled off six straight points – two from Thybulle and four from senior forward
Brenna McDonald, whose and-one at 7:44 pulled the Bulldogs within 51-39.
Thanks largely to the work of McDonald and Thybulle, Yale wound up enjoying a 40-24 advantage in points in the paint. Thybulle's 18 points topped her previous career high of 16 set Nov. 30, 2022 at UMass. She added six rebounds.
"Grace did an amazing job of stepping up," said Eshe. "We probably should have gone with our post advantage a little sooner."
Yale would get no closer, however, as two free throws from Turner started a 16-4 run for Harvard (8-6, 1-0 Ivy League) that put the game out of reach. The final was 73-54.
Notes
- McDonald finished with six points and five rebounds despite a scary moment in the second quarter when she left the game with an apparent injury. She returned just over four minutes later.
- Junior guard Nyla McGill led Yale with 10 rebounds.
- Capstraw finished with 12 points and a season-high four assists and 36 minutes played. She has scored in double digits six times in the last seven games.
Quotes from Coach Eshe
- On the team shooting .833 (15-for-18) on free throws: "That was very good. Hopefully that free throw percentage can continue to show up for the rest of the Ivy season. The players have been doing a good job working on that and getting shots up."
Other Ivy Openers
- Princeton 79, Cornell 38: The Tigers limited Cornell to a .255 shooting percentage en route to victory in Ithaca.
- Brown 65, Dartmouth 39: Three Bears scored in double digits, led by Isabella Mauricio's 16 points, as Brown opened Ivy play with a road win.
- Columbia 79, Penn 66: The Lions shot 46 percent from the field to top the Quakers in New York.
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