NEW HAVEN, Conn. – One of the defining moments of the 2022-23 Yale women's basketball season happened before it even began – a season-ending injury to captain and unanimous 2021-22 first team All-Ivy League selection
Camilla Emsbo. On Saturday at Lee Amphitheater as the season came to a close and the Bulldogs honored Emsbo on Senior Day, they had the chance to provide one more defining moment and end 2022-23 on a high note. They did just that, beating Brown 63-53.
The challenge for Yale all season long had been finding ways to win without Emsbo, the team's lone senior, who led the Ivy League in blocks per game, double doubles and field goal percentage last year. They got resourceful and managed to accumulate 13 wins by the time all was said and done, relying on contributions from some of their other reliable veterans while also watching some new stars emerge. Such was the case on Saturday. Junior guard
Jenna Clark had 11 rebounds and racked up seven assists to get to 145 for the year. Combined with her school-record 160 assists last year, she now has two of the top four single-season assist totals in school history. Meanwhile sophomore guard
Nyla McGill concluded her breakout season with six steals, one shy of her career high and a fitting way to top off a year in which she emerged as an Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year candidate. She is second in the league in steals per game (2.6). McGill also had seven rebounds and is second in the league in that category (8.9 per game). Yale's leading scorers Saturday were sophomore guard/forward
Mackenzie Egger (12 points) and junior forward
Haley Sabol (10 points). Those two, combined, more than tripled their season point total from 2021-22 to this year (from 80 to 262).
Those individual performances, combined with a team performance that included holding Brown (11-15, 4-10 Ivy League) to .258 shooting from three and going on a 14-0 run to turn a four-point deficit into a 10 point lead by the 8:53 mark of the third quarter, provided more than just the winning formula for Saturday's game. They also provided a glimpse of the future, because Yale (13-14, 7-7 Ivy League) returns an unusually large amount of the roster for next year. In the end, the Bulldogs finished fifth in the league, two games shy of fourth-place Harvard – and what would have been a spot in next weekend's Ivy League Tournament. But wins in the final two games of the season, after they were eliminated from contention for a tournament spot, give Yale some momentum heading into the offseason. The 12 Bulldogs due to return for next year can build upon that.
"I am so proud of them," said
Dalila Eshe, Yale's Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women's Basketball. "It would have been easy to check out [the last two weeks] after we were eliminated, but they stayed locked in and played for the love of the game. There's a lot to build on and I'm excited to get back out on the court in the offseason."
Emsbo will be missed; the respect all involved with the program have for her was evident on Saturday night. Even though she could not play, she remained an integral part of the team at practices and at games.
"The injury was devastating," said Eshe. "But she did a phenomenal job of being an incredible leader, not just as captain but also in working with the younger post players. She was a huge part of the successes we had this year."
In the pregame ceremony Emsbo was joined by her parents and her identical twin, Kira, who plays for Princeton and was able to attend Saturday's game because the Tigers had played Friday night.
For Eshe, Saturday also marked the conclusion of her first season as head coach. She joined the Bulldogs after three seasons as an assistant at Princeton, where she coached Kira Emsbo. As she turns her attention to her first full offseason as head coach, Eshe brings the type of intentionality that has been a hallmark of her first year leading the Bulldogs.
"I learned a lot, and I will probably wind up re-watching every game," said Eshe. "The ride has been really exciting. There are a lot of things on my checklist."
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