Women's Basketball Dominates Yale on Both Ends of Floor

By the end of Friday’s women’s basketball game, Yale coach Chris Gobrecht’s face was as red as the ‘H’ on the center of the court. The Crimson (13-7, 4-2 Ivy), employing a lethal zone defense, stifled her Bulldogs’ offensive attack all night while creating plenty of offensive opportunities in the paint 94 feet away in a 88-65 win Friday at Lavietes Pavilion.

Harvard held Yale (9-12, 4-3) to 40.7-percent shooting for the contest, including just 28.6 percent from beyond the arc. The Crimson also effectively contained the Bulldogs’ reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Week, Megan Vasquez, holding her to only 11 points.

Harvard set the tone for the game early, as junior Emma Markley won the opening tip and sent the ball to sophomore Brogan Berry, who penetrated through Yale’s man-to-man press and scored a driving layup only six seconds into the game. The teams traded baskets and the lead for the first seven minutes of the game until the Crimson began pounding the ball inside, opening up an 11-point lead with seven minutes remaining in the half.

The Crimson also took advantage of Yale’s full-court press, which allowed Harvard to beat Yale players off the dribble and prevented the Bulldogs from being able to help inside on Markley or freshman Miriam Rutzen, who contributed nine points off the bench.

“[Gobrecht] plays a lot of physical man-to-man face guard, and I thought we handled it really well,” said Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith.

However, it was freshman Victoria Lippert who benefited most from the Bulldogs’ sub-par press, as most of her game-high 21 points came off drives to the hoop.

“There was a lot of good passing action tonight,” Lippert said. “My teammates really set me up.”

Many of those passes came from Berry, who tied her career high with nine assists and also added 15 points and a steal.

Harvard had trouble scoring in the paint when junior Emma Markley was called for her second foul with 9:18 remaining in the first half, and the Crimson was forced to finish the first half with their most significant post presence on the bench.

Yale was able to cut Harvard’s double-digit lead down to seven with a 5-0 run just before the break as Markley sat and watched from the bench, but that was as close as the Bulldogs would get for the rest of the game.

“Young errors, bad passes, bad decisions—they kept [Yale] in the game,” Delaney-Smith said.

When Markley returned in the second half, she continued to maintain her dominance inside, converting a left-handed hook shot over two Yale defenders.

The Crimson continued to dominate in the second half and stretched the lead to 22 with 11 minutes remaining in the contest. Yale cut the lead down to 12 with less than five minutes left and appeared poised to make a run, but the Crimson connected on three consecutive three-pointers to stretch the lead back to 21.

The Crimson defense, led by the inside presence of Markley—who had four blocks to add to her 16 points in only 19 minutes on the court—forced Yale to launch 21 three-pointers, most of which were heavily contested.

However, Delaney-Smith questioned some of the fouls called on her post defenders.

“[Yale is a] dirty, nasty, physical team that took all threes, and they [went] to the line more than us,” she said.

All but one Crimson player scored Friday night, contributing to the balanced attack that is a big part of Harvard’s success. The Crimson also dominated the paint, outscoring the Bulldogs, 56-30, from close range.

The Crimson’s inside presence was a constant source of frustration for Gobrecht, who was assessed a technical foul in the second half when she didn’t agree with a foul call against her Bulldogs, and her critiques of the officials could be heard over the Harvard band.