NEW HAVEN, Conn. – In the end, it took a little over 10 minutes for the No. 22 Yale women's lacrosse team to get warmed up in the season opener Saturday afternoon vs. Vermont at Reese Stadium – and when the Bulldogs got going, it was worth the wait. They fell behind the Catamounts 3-2 at the 4:24 mark of the first quarter – and responded by shutting them out for the next 28 minutes, outscoring them 9-0 to take an 11-3 lead. Yale eventually came away with a 17-6 win.
Yale (1-0, 0-0 Ivy League) returns 28 players from the 2022 team that tied the school record for Ivy League wins (six) and earned the school's first-ever win in an Ivy League Tournament game. So even when the Bulldogs fell behind early Saturday, there was no sense of panic. Between free position goals by first-year midfielder
Bella Saviano at the start and end of Yale's 9-0 run, the rest of the scoring came from familiar sources – specifically, a core group of sensational sophomores. Attacker
Jenna Collignon scored four times, while attacker
Taylor Everson, midfielder
Taylor Lane and midfielder
Fallon Vaughn each scored once in that span.
Collignon finished with a team-best four goals, while Vaughn had three. Everson, Lane, Saviano and senior attacker
Olivia Penoyer finished with two goals each, while sophomore attacker
Caroline Burt and junior attacker
Bri Carrasquillo had one each.
Senior
Clare Boone proved to be the backbone of Yale's defensive effort, finishing with six saves and stopping a pair of free-position shots by the Catamounts. Vaughn led the team with four caused turnovers, while her sister – senior midfielder
Payton Vaughn, Yale's captain – had a team-best six ground balls. Lane led the team in draw controls with six. Yale limited Vermont to just 14 shots.
Yale finished 23-for-24 on clears. Vermont (0-2, 0-0 America East) was 13-for-18.
The Bulldogs return to action Wednesday at local rival Quinnipiac at 3:00 p.m.
