It was the Abby Meyers and Julia Cunningham show in New Haven Friday night.
The duo led Princeton to a 61-49 win over Yale, with Meyers posting 22 points and Cunningham 19. Cunningham also snared 11 rebounds, turning in her second double-double in a Princeton uniform.
Both teams were error-prone in the early going. The Tigers (14-4, 6-0 Ivy) held a 9-5 lead at the first media timeout, fueled by seven points from Meyers. Yale (12-7, 5-2) cut the lead to 13-11 at the end of the quarter, led by seven points from Klara Astrom.
The Bulldogs were dominant in the second stanza, outscoring Princeton 16-11 to grab a 27-24 halftime lead. They shot 38.5% from the field for the half, compared with 27.6% for the Tigers.
Cunningham was dominant in the third period with eight points and the Tigers knotted the game at 36 heading into the last period.
The key stretch in the game started with 8:44 remaining and the Tigers down 40-36. Princeton went on a 14-2 run, with Meyers hitting two key treys, the last one at 1:55 from 30 feet, with the shot clock at one second.
Yale cut it to 50-45 but would get no closer.
“We’re disappointed in the way we ran our offense,” coach Allison Guth said. “The poor decision making and turnovers – you can’t do that against a good offensive team.”
Jenna Clark and Astrom both contributed 13 points for Yale, but Clark also committed a game-high 12 turnovers.
A swarming Princeton defense held Camilla Emsbo to 11 points.
Princeton has now won 32 consecutive league contests.
This was the toughest Ivy game in Carla Berube’s tenure (can we call it the “Berube Era” yet). I think she beat H on the road two years ago by 14 after a blowout win the night before at D. Yale is a very good team and played the best quarter (second) against P that any Ivy team has achieved this year. Jenna Clark will be an All-Ivy candidate soon. Her 12 TO’s were unfortunate from her point of view. Combine those miscues with the second half defense against Emsbo (another great job by Mitchell that is not reflected in her stat line) and you have a recipe for our offense to take over. And they did. The 61 points was close to the season average, remarkable after the start.
Y was clearly confused and frustrated by their inability to involve Emsbo in the second half. They had nowhere else to go.
Winning the regular season crown will be important for any team. The 1 seed , if it is Princeton, will not have to play Yale and Columbia back to back.