NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Friday's Yale-Penn battle for first place certainly lived up to the hype. Yale seniors
Jalen Gabbidon and
Azar Swain made sure of that. Gabbidon scored a career-high 32 points, and Swain added 15 as the Bulldogs defeated the Quakers 81-72 in a highly entertaining affair at the John J. Lee Amphitheater.
It was the seventh straight victory for Yale, which clinched a spot in the Ivy League Tournament with the win. Now, the Bulldogs will turn their attention to securing a top seed in Ivy Madness. Yale is 9-1 in Ivy play, one game ahead of second-place Princeton. The Tigers, who beat Brown on Friday, visit Lee Amphitheater on Saturday. Penn fell to 8-3 with the loss.
Friday's game with the Quakers had all the intensity of an Ivy Madness contest. There were 10 lead changes and four ties.
The Bulldogs (15-9 overall) took their biggest lead of the game, 64-55, on two Gabbidon free throws with 8:54 remaining. Penn, though, refused to go away, and Jonah Charles' three-pointer put the Quakers in front, 71-70 with 3:26 remaining.
From there, it was all Yale.
Isaiah Kelly's thunderous dunk off a nifty feed from
Matt Knowling gave the Bulldogs the lead for good and started a 9-0 run. Gabbidon added a three-pointer and a driving layup during the spurt, and
Bez Mbeng and
EJ Jarvis sealed the win with free throws.
Gabbidon, who was 12-of-21 from the field, had success getting to the rim throughout the game.
"That's one of the best parts of my game," he said. "Guys on the team were encouraging me to attack."
Gabbidon also played a key role defensively. He and Mbeng helped hold Penn's Jordan Dingle, the Ivy League's leading scorer, to 10 points. Dingle, who scored 31 points in Penn's victory over Yale in the first meeting on Jan. 22, was 4-of-19 from the field and 1-of-10 from three-point range.
"We are very fortunate to have two outstanding on-the-ball defenders in Bez and Jalen," said
James Jones, The Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of the Bulldogs
. "Those guys were really locked in on [Dingle], but they had a lot of help. Every shot [Dingle] took was difficult."
Mbeng contributed in a number of ways. He finished with 10 points, seven rebounds, four assists and two steals. Jarvis also had a big game, posting his first career double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.
Clark Slajchert paced the Quakers with 18 points.
Saturday's Yale-Princeton game is a 7 p.m. start.
