By Bill Cloutier
Assistant Sports Editor
bcloutier@nhregister.com
NEW HAVEN – The schedule has not been kind to the Yale women’s basketball team. After playing six straight games on the road including a pair of contests against teams ranked in the Top 25, the Bulldogs finally returned home for a game against Boston University.
But the trip to New Haven also marked a homecoming of sorts for BU’s Chantell Alford and the former Wilbur Cross standout made several key plays in the final minutes to help the Terriers preserve a 59-54 win in a non-league game at the Lee Amphitheater Wednesday night.
Alford finished with eight points including a huge field goal with 42 seconds to play and later sealed the game with two free throws with 4 seconds left as Boston University staved off a furious Bulldog rally.
“I thought if we didn’t run the ball over we would have passed them,” Yale coach Chris Gobrecht said. “But we’ve got kids that just aren’t playing well right now and they have to play better.
“They have to do some soul-searching. The younger kids played OK but some of the older ones didn’t and they have to. It took us a while to get our land legs under us because we’ve been on the road for so long.”
The Bulldogs shot just 4 of 22 in the first half and trailed 30-14 at the break. But Megan Vazquez stepped up in the second half scoring 20 of her game-high 22 points in the second half as Yale cut the deficit to 56-54 with 11 seconds to play.
After BU hit one free throw Vazquez had a chance to tie the game with a long 3-pointer but it bounded off the rim and Alford corralled the rebounds and buried two free throws to seal it.
Alford, who entered the game leading the Terriers in scoring at 13.9 ppg., was limited to two points until the game’s final minutes. She suffered a leg injury early in the second half and did not return to the game until there was eight minutes left.
“The knee just locked up on me a bit but it’s fine now,” Alford said after the game. “We made some plays at crunch time and held on.”
Alford said the victory was even sweeter because it came in front of several of her family members and friends.
“It’s always nice to come back and play in New Haven,” she said. “Getting the win at Yale is just special.”
It was just the second game at home for Yale, which takes an 11-day break for final exams carrying a 4-4 mark.
“There’s no excuses,” Gobrecht said. “If we played them again I feel we should be all right but we didn’t play well tonight and when they got the lead, they’ve got a good point guard (Mo Moran) who controlled the tempo. “
Yale’s Janna Graf not only failed to score in the game but didn’t get a shot off. Graf, who has averaged double-figures since she arrived at the school, had three of the Bulldogs’ 22 turnovers.
“It wasn’t her type of game because we were attacking,” Gobrecht said. “She’s more of a half court player so she wasn’t in there.”
Yale got 12 points from Hayden Latham who had missed the previous week of practice and Gobrecht said was far from sharp.
“Even when we were out-playing them in the second half we sabotaged ourselves with foolish turnovers and foolish fouls.
Caroline Stewart led BU (3-4) with 14 points and 14 rebounds and Moran had 13 points.
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