Yale staked its claim to second place in Ivy women’s basketball Saturday afternoon at home by beating Penn, 63-53.
The Bulldogs never trailed, and when they took their biggest lead — 17 points — in the middle of the fourth quarter, the victory was pretty well-assured.
Neither team is likely to brag about this one, though. Uncharacteristically sloppy play led to lots of turnovers on both sides: 25 for Penn, 22 for Yale.
But Yale (11-6, 4-1 Ivy) made the best of the situation, scoring 25 points on those Penn turnovers versus 15 for Penn (7-9, 2-2). And the Bulldogs simply were the hotter shooters, hitting 44.6% from the field to the Quakers’ 30.9%.
The refs didn’t win any fans in New Haven, either, as three Bulldog starters got into foul trouble that limited them to 30 minutes or less: forwards Camilla Emsbo and Alex Cade and guard Klara Astrom.
Emsbo, one of the Ivies’ most dominant players, missed Monday’s game against Brown, and she may not have been back to full strength: She collected a mere four rebounds and a block against the Quakers. But she did enough, scoring a team-high 13 points on 6-for-11 shooting.
The Bulldogs went 10 deep in the first half.
”We are pleased with how we shared it 21 times and excited to have the bench production that we did,” Yale coach Allison Guth said.
Yale’s bench outscored Penn’s, 20-3.
Jenna Clark, the first-year sophomore guard who already led the Ivies in assists, just missed a double-double with nine points and 10 assists.
Penn relied heavily on its own first-year sophomore star, forward Jordan Obi, who led everybody with 12 rebounds as well as 18 points and kept Emsbo in check about as well as anyone has this season. Obi, too, got into foul trouble — three of the four calls against her were for charging — but she stayed in the game for all but a couple of minutes.
It was Obi’s sixth straight game scoring in double figures and 12th this season.
Thanks largely to Obi, Penn overcame Yale’s height advantage to grab an equal share of rebounds. But Yale dominated for points in the paint, 28-16.
Penn also got 18 points from leading scorer Kayla Padilla, and though that’s a lot for anyone else, it’s below Padilla’s average — and below what the Quakers need from her when they play one of the league’s better teams. Padilla hit six of 16 shots for the day, including three of seven three-point shots.
The other Quakers shot just 4-for-19 — 21% — on threes for the day, and they simply could not catch up even when Yale’s offense stumbled.
Yale will host Dartmouth (1-15, 0-4) on Sunday in what promises to be a less challenging game. Penn travels to Columbia (13-3, 4-0) Wednesday night in another tough matchup.