Bulldogs Head to Quinnipiac for Elm City Showdown
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NEW HAVEN, Conn. – There may be a road game
on the schedule, but the Yale women’s basketball team will
only be traveling a scant nine miles from the familiar confines of
Payne Whitney Gymnasium on Monday evening. The Bulldogs’
destination is the TD Bank Sports Center in Hamden, home of the
Quinnipiac Bobcats. Yale and Quinnipiac, meeting for the 12th
consecutive season, will clash at 7 p.m. The Bulldogs enter the
contest with an even 4-4 record.
Last Time Out
Despite a game-best 16 points from junior Mady Gobrecht to lead
three Yale players in double-figures, the Bulldogs’ fell to
UC Davis at the John J. Lee Amphitheater in New Haven on Saturday
by a score of 60-55. Junior Yoyo Greenfield netted 11 points for
Yale, and freshman Megan Vasquez netted 10 points and pulled down a
career-best seven rebounds in her first career start. Sophomore
Michelle Cashen hauled in a game-high nine rebounds as the Bulldogs
outrebounded UC Davis, 41-28. Gobrecht hauled in eight rebounds and
swatted three shots for Yale, which rejected 10 Aggies’
offering in the contest. Another positive sign for Yale was the
return of senior Haywood Wright, who saw her first action in 10
months after missing the end of the 2008-09 season with a knee
injury. Wright scored four points, grabbed seven rebounds and
blocked three shots in 17 minutes of work off of the Yale
bench.
Points at a Premium
In five of eight games this season, including all four of their
victories, the Bulldogs have held their opponents to just 60 points
or fewer. Yale surrendered less than 20 points in the first half of
wins against Army (15) and Bucknell (19), while holding Boston
University to 22 first-half points and limiting Holy Cross to only
21 points in the second half of a comeback victory.
Scouting Quinnipiac
The Quinnipiac Bobcats defeated Maine on Dec. 12 to improve their
record to 3-5 in the 2009-10 campaign. The Bobcats, who are 2-2 at
the TD Bank Sports Center, are led offensively by 12.4 points per
game from Courtney Kaminski. Kaminski has also crashed the boards
to the tune of a team-best 6.9 rebounds per contest. Quinnipiac
Head Coach Tricia (Sacca) Fabbri played and later served as an
assistant coach at Fairfield University under current Yale
Associate Head Coach Dianne Nolan. Additionally, Yale Assistant
Coach Queen (Edwards) Smith ranks second in Quinnipiac history in
career steals and assists.
Series History
2009-10 marks the 14th all-time meeting between the Bulldogs and
Bobcats and the 12th consecutive season that the two programs have
met. Yale won last season’s meeting in overtime, 77-73, to
bring the series to 7-6 all-time in favor of the Bobcats. The home
team has claimed victory in each of the last four encounters.
Leading the Way
Two-time All-Ivy honoree Melissa Colborne is once again
Yale’s offensive pacesetter in 2009-10 with 10.3 points per
game. The senior, who ranked second in the Ivy League in scoring in
each of the last two seasons, currently ranks eighth in Yale
history with 1,253 career points. Colborne is nine points away from
the seventh slot on the list, held by Erica Davis ’07 (1,262
points) and 118 points shy of the all-time top five (Lisa Brummel
’81, 1,371 points). The former Ivy League Rookie of the Year
has already eclipsed the Yale program records for free throws made
in a game (14), a season (156), a career (433) and in a game
without a miss (12-for-12), as well as for free throw attempts in a
career (566). Her career free throw percentage of .765 is
fifth-best in Yale history.
Cold Weather = Hot Streak
Junior forward Mady Gobrecht has averaged 13.8 and 8.3 rebounds per
game over the Bulldogs’ last four contests. Gobrecht is
shooting 52.4% (22-for-42) from the floor over that streak, and has
also chipped in with 10 assists, seven blocks and seven steals in
29.0 minutes per game. The junior highlighted her torrid scoring
streak with a career-best 18 points in the win over Boston
University on Dec. 9.
No Sophomore Slump
Sophomore Michelle Cashen, a 2008-09 All-Ivy Rookie Team selection,
has been one of the Bulldogs’ most consistent players this
season. Cashen is currently one of five Yale players averaging over
7.0 points per game (7.4 ppg) and is the Bulldogs’ top
rebounder with 7.5 boards per contest. The sophomore has also
played a team-best 28.4 minutes per game and has tallied two
double-doubles in 2009-10.
Spreading the Wealth
Yale active roster boasts five players averaging at least 7.4
points per game, led by 10.3 per contest from Melissa Colborne. The
Bulldogs, who have seven players averaging over 20 minutes per
game, have had four different players lead them in scoring and four
different players lead the way in rebounding through eight games
this season.
Picking on the Patriot
The Bulldogs went 3-0 against Patriot League foes this season,
besting Holy Cross, Army and Bucknell. Yale was 1-2 against the
same trio of opponents last season, posting a win at Holy Cross
while dropping one-possession decisions to both the Bison (73-70)
and Black Knights (62-60).
Double Double-Doubles
Sophomore Michelle Cashen (13 pts., 15 rebs.) and junior Mady
Gobrecht (12 pts., 10 rebs.) both posted double-doubles in the
Bulldogs’ season-opening victory over Holy Cross on Nov. 13.
The last time two Yale players had double-doubles in the same game
was on Jan. 13, 2007, when Erica Davis ’07 (21 pts., 11
rebs.) and Chinenye Okafor ’07 (10 pts., 13 rebs.) each
performed the feat against Brown.
Starting Strong
Freshman Megan Vasquez led all Bulldogs with 15 points in her
collegiate debut against Holy Cross on Nov. 13. Vasquez, who scored
six points during a 13-0 run in the second half that cut the
Crusaders’ lead from 17 to 4 and later iced the game with
four free throws in the final 24 seconds, shot 4-for-14 from the
field and 7-for-8 from the charity stripe in the contest. She is
the first freshman to lead Yale in scoring in her collegiate debut
since Kaitlyn Lillemoe ’09 scored a team-best 19 points
against New Hampshire to open the 2005-06 season.
Nice to Meet You
The UC Davis Aggies were Yale’s third of four first-time
opponents on the non-conference slate this season. An upcoming game
at Colorado will also be a first-time meeting. Both of Yale’s
opponents at the Holiday Inn & Suites Express Midtown
Thanksgiving Tournament, Toledo and North Carolina A&T, were
first-time challengers for the Bulldogs.
Branches on the Coaching Tree
Chris Gobrecht, the Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of
Women’s Basketball at Yale, was very familiar with her
counterparts on the Arizona State bench on Nov. 19. Charli Turner
Thorne, the head coach of the Sun Devils, was an assistant on
Gobrecht’s staff at the University of Washington. Prior to
the Sun Devils’ postseason matchup with Connecticut, the New
Haven Register cited that Thorne “still teaches the defensive
principles she first learned from [Gobrecht]”. In addition,
Arizona State Associate Head Coach Meg (Gallagher) Sanders played
collegiately on Gobrecht’s Cal State Fullerton squad from
1982-85.
That’s a Lot of W’s
With 460 wins in her career entering 2009-10, Chris Gobrecht, the
Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women’s
Basketball at Yale ranks 30th among active Division I coaches in
all-time victories. Among coaches on Yale’s 2009-10 schedule,
only Bill Gibbons of Holy Cross (476 wins) has more career
victories than Gobrecht. Gobrecht and Gibbons are both topped,
however, by another coach from the Yale sidelines: Associate Head
Coach Dianne Nolan, who amassed 517 wins as head coach of St.
Francis (N.Y.) and Fairfield.
Schedule Strength
Five teams on the Bulldogs’ slate participated in the 2009
NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Dartmouth, Sacred Heart
and North Carolina A&T all received automatic bids as
conference champions and lost in the first round to higher-seeded
opponents. Kansas State advanced to the second round as a No. 5
seed, and No. 6-seeded Arizona State’s season ended in the
Regional Finals (Elite Eight) at the hands of the eventual national
champion, Connecticut.
Making the Rounds
The Bulldogs’ 14 non-conference games will feature 10
different conferences (America East, Big XII, Big West, Great West,
Mid-American, Mid-Eastern Athletic, Mountain West, Northeast,
Pac-10, Patriot) as well a Division I independent (Bryant).
Top Dogs
Though there are 32 American universities with the
“Bulldogs” mascot, last season’s win over Bryant
marked just the second time that Yale women’s basketball had
met another team sporting the “Bulldogs” moniker. The
2003-04 Yale Bulldogs dropped a 69-48 decision to the Gonzaga
Bulldogs on Nov. 29, 2003 as a part of the Seattle Times
Classic.
The Bulldogs in 2008-09
Shorthanded for much of the Ivy League season, Yale went 4-10 in
Ancient Eight play in 2008-09 and 11-17 overall. Melissa Colborne
earned a spot on the All-Ivy Second Team, and Michelle Cashen
punctuated her freshman season with a selection to the All-Ivy
Rookie Team. With a healthy roster in the pre-Ivy League season of
2008-09, Yale defeated North Carolina State- the program’s
first-ever win over an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent- and was
tied with Southeastern Conference foe Kentucky with 15 seconds
remaining in the contest.
Every Day is Mother’s Day
Junior forward Mady Gobrecht is the daughter of head coach Chris
Gobrecht. They are one of two active mother-daughter, coach-player
tandems in Division I women’s basketball (Southern
Mississippi: Coach Joye Lee-McNelis and Whitney McNelis). This is
the sixth time in Yale’s 156-year athletic history that a
head coach is mentoring his or her child in a varsity sport, and
the first where the combo is mother-daughter (men’s fencing:
Robert & Maurice Grasson, 1936-38; baseball: Smoky Joe &
Joseph Wood, 1939-41; men’s basketball: Howard & David
Hobson, 1952-55; men’s squash: John & Jack Skillman,
1954-55; football: Jordan & Harry Olivar, 1957-59).
Another Intra-State Affair
After a week-long Holiday recess, the Bulldogs will play
another Connecticut road game on Dec. 28 at Sacred Heart. Tip-off
from the William H. Pitt Center in Fairfield is slated for 7
p.m.
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report filed by Drew M. Kingsley, Yale Sports Publicity
