By Bill Cloutier
Assistant Sports Editor
bcloutier@nhregister.com
Yale coach Chris Gobrecht intentionally schedules a grueling non-league slate to get her team ready when the Ivy League season starts. The problem this year is that practically nothing could prepare her team for this season’s cheduling quirks.
Yale opens up Ivy League play tonight at Brown, at 7 p.m. The Bulldogs then host the Bears next week before playing the next four league games back on the road.
“There’s no question I’m concerned about it,” Gobrecht said. “I’m on the women’s basketball Division I advisory committee and I try to get people to understand how tough you have to be to compete in the Ivy League. We play back-to-back games. We have road trips that it seems like you’re on buses endlessly.
“So doing five out of your first six on the road we just have to be really tough. We can’t have excuses. We can’t be babies about it we’ve just got to buckle down and get it done. The good thing about is we get to be home at the end but what’s hard when you open up with so many on the road you don’t want to be out of it before you’ve got into well into the league.”
Yale went 10-4 in the Ivy League last year finishing second place behind powerhouse Princeton which is not only the favorite to repeat their league title for the third straight season but is also teetering on the brink of national prominence. The Tigers are 27-1 in Ivy League play over the past two seasons and Gobrecht thinks they could be even better this year.
But Gobrecht, whose team enters league play 8-6, has done her best to get her team ready for the ensuing onslaught. She’s traveled to Delaware, Florida State and top-ranked Baylor this year.
“Everytime you arrange your preseason you try to get some games you’re pretty sure you’re going to win,” she said. “Then you put in those games that you’re likely to lose and then have a good percentage of 50-50 games. When you go through it you would like to win the games you’re supposed to win and win more than your share of the 50-50 games and then get some upsets.
“The only thing we didn’t do was get the upsets. We won our share of the other games but those upsets would have had to have happened at Baylor and at Delaware and at Florida State and that probably wasn’t going to happen.”
But Gobrecht said she feels that playing elite teams like Baylor at the very least will give her team lasting memories.
“We had a good time and I think the team we’ll always be able to take with them that in 2011 we played the two best players in collegiate women’s basketball in Baylor’s Brittney Griner and Delaware’s Elena Delle Donne and that will be a thrill that they carry with them a long time,” Gobrecht said.
Yale swept Brown (9-4) last season but Gobrecht feels the Bears are improving.
“We had a really tough time with them both times last year and they’re more experienced this year,” she said. “They play great together and they’re deceptive and effective and they’re preseason record proves it.”
The Bulldogs are also battling a few injuries including a concussion to freshman Hayden Latham suffered against Florida State. The injury still irks Gobrecht.
“There was a player at Florida State that took a real cheap shot at her and we’re not happy about it,” Gobrecht said. “She’s been out since that game we’re not sure when we’ll have her back.”
With its second-place finish last season Yale earned a berth in the WNIT, its first national postseason bid.
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Here are the details, courtesy of Yale:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The Yale University women’s basketball team knew the task of beating Army was not going to be an easy one, but the Bulldogs certainly didn’t expect it to be as difficult as it turned out to be.

Army freshman Olivia Schretzman had a chance to lift Army to the come-from-behind victory, but her eight-foot jumper at the buzzer rolled in and out of the basket, allowing Yale to survive with a 63-62 win Sunday afternoon inside John J. Lee Amphitheater.

Yale had a 61-58 lead with 2:20 left thanks to a layup from Aarica West, but Schretzman tied the game with an old-fashioned 3-point play with 1:53 left. Anna Simmers, who led Army with 17 points, made 1-of-2 free throws with 1:30 left to give Army a 62-61 lead, but on the ensuing offensive possession, Graf missed a 3-pointer with 1:15 left and Vasquez grabbed the offensive board and scored on the put-back layup with 1:10 left to lift Yale to the victory.

Army had a full 30 seconds and one timeout remaining to plan its attack for the final shot, but the timeout was never called and the Black Knights scrambled to find someone open for the last-ditch effort. Despite the disarray at the end, Schretzman managed to get a good look at the basket for the final shot, but she couldn’t get it to fall as time expired.

Yale saw five players score at least eight points, and the balanced attach helped the Bulldogs improve to 6-6 overall with two games remaining in the non-league schedule. Michelle Cashen recorded her eighth career double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Bulldogs. Megan Vasquez also scored 11 points, one game after she was held scoreless by Florida State for the first time in her collegiate career.

Freshmen Sarah Halejian and Arrice Bryant also turned in strong performances for Yale. Halejian scored nine points, behind a 5-for-5 showing at the free-throw line. Bryant scored six points, grabbed nine rebounds, and blocked three shots.

Yale led by as many as 10 points in the first half thanks to a strong first half from sophomore Janna Graf. She scored all eight of her points in the half to help the Bulldogs cruise into the locker room at halftime with a 34-25 lead.

Army was not going to go away quietly, however. The Black Knights (6-8) opened the second half with a 13-3 run over the first 5:07 of the half to take their first lead of the game, 38-37, with 14:53 to play.

It was a seesaw battle the rest of the way. Neither team was able to gain an advantage of more than three points over the final 10 minutes of play.

Jen Hazlett also scored 17 points for Army. Milford, Conn., native Molly Yardley recorded a double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds.

Tickets for the annual Quinnipiac-Yale women's basketball can be pruchsed for just $2 today. The tip-off is scheduled for 4 p.m at the TD Bank Sports Center and this should be a good one. Yale is coming off a dominant 72-41 win over NEC ream St. Francis, N.Y.
Freshman guard Sarah Halejian scored 14 points, her highest output in her short Yale career, to help lead Yale to the win. She also matched a season-high with three rebounds and added two steals in the victory. Thanks to that performance, Halejian was named the Ivy League Co-Player of the Week Monday afternoon.

"Sarah is a gifted offensive player and is becoming a very strong defender as well," said Chris Gobrecht, the Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954, Head Coach of Women's Basketball. "It is great to be able to get such significant contributions from our freshmen."

In her fourth start of the season, Halejian scored eight of her 14 points in the second half, helping the Bulldogs outscore the Terriers 44-20 in the second half. Halejian scored her 14 points on 6-of-10 shooting with one 3-pointer and a 1-for-1 showing at the free-throw line. She was 3-for-4 from the floor in the second half, including a perfect 1-for-1 from 3-point range and 1-for-1 from the line.

Today's game can be seen on cable sports network NESN.