Yale men’s lacrosse team opens season with high expectations

NEW HAVEN — Things went from the best of times to the worst of times in rapid succession for the Yale women’s basketball team on Friday night.

The Bulldogs scored the first 12 points of the game against visiting Princeton and it seemed as if Yale would walk out of John J. Lee Amphitheater owning a share of first place in the Ivy League standings.

However, missed layups, unforced turnovers, scoring droughts and foul trouble to their top two scorers all contributed to Yale suffering just its second home loss of the season.

Carlie Littlefield scored 14 of her 20 points in the second half and freshman Ellie Mitchell finished with more offensive rebounds than the entire Yale team as visiting Princeton pulled away for the 55-39 victory before a crowd of 551.

“We are really disappointed,” Yale coach Allison Guth said. “I thought we kept Princeton out of what they wanted to score for about 25 seconds on the (shot) clock and it was

absolutely deflating. We prepared for it. We circled at halftime, we rebounded all week and that is so frustrating. I think that is a toughness, a grit thing.”

Princeton outrebounded Yale 50-26 including an 18-4 advantage in offensive rebounds. The second chances didn’t always result in points for the firstplace Tigers but forced

Yale to play another 20-25 seconds of defense rather than being able to head down on offense.

“It was a big key to the game,” said Princeton coach Carla Berube, a former UConn star who has now won her last seven regular-season games she coached in Connecticut dating back to her successful run at Division III Tufts. “They are nice when the shots aren’t falling and we’ve got to make plays in different ways. We have a freshman (Mitchell) who gets after the boards but I think we did a collective effort on the offensive boards.”

Roxy Barahman scored the game’s first seven points including a threepoint play to open the scoring. Ellen Margaret Andrews hit a 3-pointer to put the Bulldogs up by 10. Princeton called timeout and after Tori Andrew’s driving layup put the Bulldogs up 12-0, the Tigers began to chip away at the lead.

Carlie Littlefield hit four free throws but more importantly created a pair of fouls against Barahman forcing her to come out of the game with 1:20 left in the first quarter and not return until 1:45 remained in the first half. Compounding matters for Yale was seeing Camilla Emsbo being whistled for a pair of fouls in a span of 10 seconds. Emsbo sat for the final 6:26 of the first half.

“I really thought a couple of the touch calls in there really changed the entire momentum of the game because I think it sucked the energy out of the gym and put our best players on the bench,” Guth said. “That is something we are going to have to learn from, adjust to how they are calling a game and stay on the floor.”

While the foul trouble hurt, the absence of Barahman and Emsbo was amplified but the lack of secondary scoring.

On a night when Alarie failed to score in double figures for just the second time this season, the Tigers were powered by Littlefield’s fourth 20-point game of the season while Mitchell and fellow reserves Abby Meyers and Maggie Connolly combined for 20 points and 18 rebounds.

Without their top two scorers for most of the second quarter, the Bulldogs managed just seven points in the period. Yale missed eight of its last nine shots in the first half with the only made basket on a difficult reverse layup by Robin Gallagher over Alarie, the two-time Ivy League Player of the Year.

It was Alarie who gave the Tigers their first lead on a jumper in the lane with 2:23 remaining in the half. She stole the ball near the top of the key on the next possession and hit the transition layup. Yale coach Guth gambled by bringing Barahman back in the game with the hope that the return of the team’s senior point guard who settle things down. Just seven seconds later Meyers hit a 3-pointer to make it a six-point lead. Princeton was in front 29-21 at halftime.

Yale (15-5, 5-2 in the Ivy League) got back within four late in the third quarter as Tori Andrew hit one of the Bulldogs’ two 3pointers and 20 seconds later hit a foul shot followed by Emsbo’s offensive rebound and putback over Alarie. The Bulldogs would miss 14 of their final 17 shots to squander any hopes of handing Princeton (18-1, 6-0) its first league loss of the season.

Barahman had 13 points and three steals and Emsbo finished with 10 points and seven rebounds. The rest of the team shot 6 of 23 from the field and had 11 turnovers.

“They have a very good offensive team and for us to hold them to 39 I thought it was a really great effort by the whole team,” Berube said.

Alarie had nine points, 10 rebounds, four assists, four steals and two blocked shots.