NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Yale women's basketball team (4-7, 0-0 Ivy League) brings a three-game winning streak into the first games since a brief break for reading period and exams. The Bulldogs resume play on Thursday at Monmouth (11:30 a.m., SNY, NBC Sports Philadelphia, The WAX,
FloCollege,
Live Stats,
free admission). They then fly south to play at High Point Saturday (12:00 p.m.,
ESPN+,
Live Stats,
Tickets). After that they are off until Jan. 3, when they host Brown to start Ivy League play.
Last Game
Yale won its third straight game Monday Dec. 8,
beating the University of New Haven 63-49. A 15-0 Bulldogs run in the third quarter turned a 33-32 Chargers lead into a 47-33 Yale lead, and the Bulldogs never looked back. Sophomore guard
Marisa Chapman (Middletown, N.Y.) had a double-double (12 points, 10 rebounds) and sophomore guard
Ciniya Moore (Bradenton, Fla.) scored a career-high 23 points.
Tops in Blocks
Yale leads the Ivy League in blocked shots, averaging 4.27 per game. Harvard (4.09) is the only other Ivy team that is averaging more than four blocks per game. Individually, first-year forward
Dorka Kastl (Budapest, Hungary) leads the league with 25 blocks, ten more than any other Ivy player.
Assists Keep Coming for Capstraw
Senior forward
Kiley Capstraw (West Orange, N.J.) is averaging 4.2 assists per game, second in the Ivy League and 1.6 more than she averaged per game last year. She has improved her assists per game from 0.5 in her first year to 1.2 in her sophomore year to 2.6 per game last year. This year she is also second in the league in assist/turnover ratio (1.7).
Prolific Point-Scoring Pace
Sophomore guard
Ciniya Moore (Bradenton, Fla.) is on pace for 437 points this season (she is averaging 16.2 points per game through the first 11 games). That would be the most by a Bulldog in a single season since 2019-20, when Roxy Barahman '20 scored 463. Barahman had set Yale's single-season record the year before, scoring 539 points in 2018-19.
Back in Jersey Again
For the second time in less than two weeks, Yale senior forward
Kiley Capstraw (West Orange, N.J.) will play in her home state of New Jersey this Thursday. Capstraw was a four-year captain at West Orange High School, where she helped the team win its first Essex County Championship in 2019. She was a McDonald's All-American Games nominee in 2022 and was Super Essex Conference Player of the Year in 2021. Prior to Yale's game at Rider Dec. 6, the Bulldogs practiced at West Orange High's gym. They went on to beat Rider 53-52. Capstraw's mother, Chelsea, played for Rider from 1989 through 1992.
Home Game for HEV
No Yale players are from North Carolina, but a Yale assistant coach is – and Saturday's game will be about 70 miles from her hometown.
Hannah Early Vaughn is a native of Huntersville, N.C. She played forward at Davidson (less than 10 miles from High Point), where as a senior she earned the school's Rebecca E. Stimson Award, presented annually "to a woman athlete in recognition of outstanding dedication and contribution to intercollegiate athletics". She was part of a pair of 22 win seasons, tied for the second-most single-season wins in school history. In 2011-12 and 2012-13 the Wildcats went a combined 33-7 in SoCon play, earning trips to the WNIT each year. Vaughn ended her career fourth in program history in scoring (1,406 points).
Scouting Monmouth
Monmouth (4-4, 0-0 CAA) has won three of its last four after starting the season 1-3. The Hawks are in their second season under Cait Wetmore, a former Ivy League assistant coach (Columbia, 2010-12). Yale beat Monmouth 64-61 in last year's season opener, rallying from a deficit that was as large as 12 in the third quarter. Sophomore guard
Marisa Chapman (Middletown, N.Y.) had a double-double in her Yale debut (17 points, 12 rebounds).
Scouting High Point
High Point (10-1, 0-0 Big South) has won five in a row heading into Wednesday's game at Davidson. With a current NCAA Net Ranking of 108, the Panthers are the fourth-best team left on Yale's schedule, trailing only No. 34 Princeton, No. 66 Harvard and No. 67 Columbia.
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