May 1, 2007

NEW HAVEN, Conn.--Following a team vote, point guard Stephanie Marciano has been elected captain of the 2007-08 Yale women's basketball team. The announcement was made during the team's annual year-end banquet held Friday night at the Course at Yale. Marciano was also named the team's Most Improved Player for the second time in her career. Senior Erica Davis took MVP honors, while two-year captain Chinenye Okafor earned the Leadership Award. The Karen Yarasavage Award for "grit, determination and leadership" went to sophomore guard Jamie Van Horne.

Marciano was the only Yale player to start all 28 games last season. She finished fourth on the team in scoring with a career-high 8.3 points per game, and placed second in the Ivy League with 116 assists. Marciano was instrumental in the Bulldogs' home sweep of Harvard and Dartmouth in late January, earning Ivy League Player of the Week honors after averaging 19 points in the two games. Marciano finished with the best assist/turnover ratio in the Ivy League (1.30) en route to being recognized as the Most Improved Player. She was also named Most Improved after her freshman campaign, making her the second player in school history to win the award twice.

"I am honored my teammates voted me captain," Marciano said. "I will make every effort to bring leadership, a positive attitude and a solid work ethic next year. Over the past two years Nenye has truly shown this team what it means to lead by example. I have learned a lot from her, which will help me lead this team. I am excited for next season. I see great potential in our team, and I have no doubt we will be successful."

"Stephanie handled the responsibility of being our point guard very well this past season, and it is a perfect transition for her now to be called upon by her teammates to serve as their captain," Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach Chris Gobrecht said. "I have great confidence in her ability to lead this team during her senior season and I know she will take that responsibility very seriously."

Davis was the most recognized player of the night. She was given her First Team All-Ivy and Academic All-Ivy awards, as well as her 1,000th-point game ball. Davis also received her framed game jersey and several other awards from her teammates. Most notably, she was presented with the team's Most Valuable Player award. Davis led the team in scoring (15.6 ppg), rebounding (9.0) and blocked shots (a school-record 63). She finished her career ranked seventh all-time in scoring, fifth in rebounding and first in blocks. Davis was unanimously named First Team All-Ivy, the first Bulldog chosen to the first team since 1997-98.

"Erica has received numerous awards this past season and performed at a level rarely seen at Yale, but I know that being acknowledged by her teammates as the team's most valuable player means more to her than any of the other awards," Gobrecht said. "She will be hard to replace."

Okafor served as team captain in both her junior and senior seasons. She suffered a broken toe at Penn on Feb. 3, but fought her way back into the lineup after missing only one game. She was second on the team in both scoring (9.1 ppg) and rebounding (7.9), and earned Honorable Mention All-Ivy recognition. Okafor, who had to miss the banquet to attend a job interview, addressed her teammates in a 10-minute video she sent from Dallas.

Van Horne was the team's top three-point threat, shooting .341 from downtown. She tied an NCAA record by going 7-for-7 from behind the arc at Brown on Jan. 20, and scored 15 straight points on five treys at Harvard on Feb. 17. Van Horne finished fifth on the squad with 6.8 points per game, and was third in the Ivy League with 52 three-pointers made.

Yale posted a 12-16 record last season, a nine-game improvement from 2005-06. The Bulldogs finished sixth in the Ivy League with a 5-9 conference mark, their highest finish since 2003-04. Yale was the only Ivy League team to beat conference-champion Harvard, and posted a 15-point home victory over a Marist team that reached the Sweet Sixteen and was ranked No. 22 in the final national poll.

The current crop of Bulldogs will get to play together one more time when the team travels to Germany for a 10-day foreign tour in late May and early June. Yale is tentatively scheduled to open the 2007-08 regular season at home against NCAA Tournament participant Holy Cross.

Report filed by Joe Clifford, Yale Sports Publicity