NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The No. 16 Yale women's lacrosse team has won five of its last six games; Harvard has won six of its last seven. The two teams are separated by just one game in the Ivy League standings – Yale is in second place at 3-1, Harvard is in a three-way tie for fourth at 2-2. Stakes are high as the ancient rivals meet Saturday afternoon (3:30 p.m.,
ESPN+,
International Stream,
Live Stats,
Tickets). A Yale win would keep the Bulldogs within the top two spots in the Ivy League for at least another week; a Harvard win could leave both teams in a multiple-team tie for third with two games to play.
Last Game
Yale
lost at Penn 16-6 last Saturday, snapping a five-game winning streak for the Bulldogs. Sophomore attacker
Jenna Collignon (Hinsdale, Ill.) and sophomore midfielder
Taylor Lane (Norwalk, Conn.) had hat tricks. The Bulldogs had a 17-9 draw control advantage, with Collignon getting seven and sophomore midfielder
Sky Carrasquillo (Alpharetta, Ga.) getting six. Sophomore defender
Marymegan Wright (Myrtle Beach, S.C.) had a team-best three ground balls.
RPI and the Ivy League
Yale is the highest-ranked Ivy League team in the recently released
NCAA RPI rankings. Here is the full list:
15. Yale
23. Penn
34. Princeton
48. Cornell
53. Brown
63. Dartmouth
68. Harvard
102. Columbia
Last season every team that was ranked No. 22 or better in the RPI at the time of NCAA Tournament selections made the tournament. The lowest-ranked team to host first- and second-round NCAA Tournament games was Princeton, which was No. 12 in the RPI at the time of selections. NCAA Tournament selections for 2023 will be announced May 7.
Turning 'Em Over
Yale's 137 caused turnovers for the season rank fourth on the school's single-season record list. The school record of 181 CTs was set in 2007. Yale averaged 10.65 CTs per game that year. As of Apr. 11 this year, Yale was seventh in the nation in caused turnovers per game (11.42).
Grounded
Senior midfielder
Payton Vaughn (Concord, Mass.) leads the Ivy League in ground balls with 27. She and sophomore defender
Marymegan Wright (Myrtle Beach, S.C.) (20 ground balls) have both reached the 20 GB mark. Wright has at least one ground ball in every game this season except one, with a high of four in the 15-10 win vs. then-No. 15 Princeton Mar. 4. Vaughn has at least one ground ball in nine of 12 games, with a high of six in the season-opening 17-6 win vs. Vermont Feb. 18. The Yale single-season record for ground balls is 44, set in 2005 by
Sarah Driscoll '05.
Collignon on Tewaaraton Award Watch List
Sophomore attacker
Jenna Collignon (Hinsdale, Ill.) has been
named to the Tewaaraton Award Women's Watch List and was an
Honorable Mention ILWomen Midseason All-American. Collignon is one of 73 players on the Watch List; the field will be narrowed to 25 nominees next week. She leads the Ivy League in goals (39) and is tied for the Ieague lead in points (47). She has a 19 game point-scoring streak dating back to last season. The last time she was held without a point was Mar. 13, 2022 at Boston College.
Penoyer Leads in Assists
Senior attacker
Olivia Penoyer (Manlius, N.Y.) leads the Ivy League in assists with 27 and set the Yale career assists record with her 87th in the win at Brown Apr. 1. Here are Yale's top five in career assists:
Olivia Penoyer (93)
Laura Karmatz '95 (86)
Erin Porta '99 (78)
Sarah Queener '03 (66)
Nicole Piasecki '84 (66)
Penoyer had 37 assists last season, six shy of Karmatz' single-season school record (set in 1994).
Four from the Bay State
Yale's roster includes four players from Massachusetts:
Gill's sister, Olivia, was a defender for Harvard's women's lacrosse team, graduating last year. Her brother, Thomas, graduated from Harvard in 2016 and rowed for the Crimson.
Around the Ivy League
Penn (3-0) enters the weekend as the only team unbeaten in Ivy League play. Yale (3-1) is in second place and Princeton (2-1) is in third. The Quakers and Tigers, having played one less game than all the other Ivies, will catch up on Wednesday Apr. 19 when Penn hosts Princeton.
Here is a look at the league slate for the weekend:
Saturday
- 12:00 p.m. Brown at No. 22 Princeton
- 12:00 p.m. Cornell at No. 17 Penn
- 1:00 p.m. Dartmouth at Columbia
- 3:30 p.m. No. 16 Yale at Harvard
The top four teams in the final standings make the Ivy League Tournament, with semifinals set for May 5 and the championship set for May 7. All games take place at the site of the No. 1 seed.
Scouting Harvard
Harvard (6-5, 2-2 Ivy League) has turned its season around after an 0-4 start, going 6-1 since Mar. 11. The Crimson are 10th nationally in ground balls per game (18.82). Junior midfielder Callie Hem is tied for the Ivy League lead in points (47) with Yale sophomore attacker
Jenna Collignon (Hinsdale, Ill.). Yale has won two of the last three games in the series, including last season's
13-12 win in New Haven. Saturday's game is part of a doubleheader at Harvard's Jordan Field, with the Crimson men's lacrosse team hosting Penn at noon.
