Yale Athletics

On Wednesday night, the Yale women’s basketball team (4–6, 0–0 Ivy) lost 75–59 at Quinnipiac University (5–3, 0–0 Metro Atlantic).

While Yale shot .367 from the field, Quinnipiac shot .520, the second-best shooting performance of their season. The Bobcats were on fire in the first quarter and forced Yale to play catch-up throughout the night. Overcoming Quinnipiac’s hot hand proved to be too much for the Bulldogs, who left the game with their sixth loss of the season.

“It’s still early in the season,” said Grace Thybulle ’25. “While we obviously would love to pick up a win here, we know that we’re still working and growing as a team, and all of our potential goals–especially competing for an Ivy League title–are still in play for us.”

Two minutes into the first quarter, with the score tied at four, Quinnipiac made a bucket, which kicked off an 8–0 run. Yale could not string together a run of their own to answer Quinnipiac’s charge.

Quinnipiac made four threes in the first quarter, which ended with them leading the Bulldogs 24–10.

“I think it’s tough when a team like Quinnipiac comes out that hot from three,” Thybulle said. “It forced us to keep playing higher up, which allowed them to get better penetration inside. I think we will continue to work on our help side defense and closeouts moving forward to try to prevent this.”

In the second quarter both teams scored 13 points. Haley Sabol ’24, Avery Lee ’25, Nyla McGill ’25, Elles van der Maas ’24 and Thybulle each made buckets for the Bulldogs. Going into the half, the score was 37–23.

At the beginning of the third quarter McGill made a layup to cut the deficit down to 12, but it ballooned up to 23 with 3:36 left. The quarter ended with Quinnipiac ahead of the Bulldogs 57–38.

Five minutes into the fourth quarter, Yale once again cut the lead down to 12 on a layup by McGill, but Quinnipiac increased their lead after they forced a turnover, which sparked a 6-point Bobcat run. When the final buzzer sounded, the score was 75–59 for Quinnipiac.

Yale gave up 20 turnovers throughout the night, 13 of which Quinnipiac forced with steals.

“We just need to value the ball more,” said Lee. “We know we need to bring our turnover numbers down. … We all know the right play that needs to be made so it’s just a matter of focusing and not playing so tight.”

But the Bulldogs still grabbed 41 rebounds against Quinnipiac, the most they have had in a game since an early season matchup against St. Joseph’s. Rebounding was a point of emphasis for the team after their last game in which Syracuse outrebounded them 22-14 on the offensive glass. Yale made sure that did not happen against Quinnipiac, as the Bulldogs had 21 offensive boards to the Bobcats’ 8.

McGill led the Bulldogs with 13 rebounds. She also led the team with 15 points and cashed in her third double-double of the season.

“Offensively, continuously applying pressure on them by attacking the basket and forcing them to foul me was working a lot,” McGill said. “I rebounded a lot more in the second half, and that comes with help from my teammates boxing out, but also individually staying focused on grabbing the ball rather than ball-watching.”

The Bulldogs play next against Drexel (5–2, 0–0 Colonial Athletic) on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. in Payne Whitney Gymnasium.