Syracuse women’s basketball: Orange overcome a slow start to take down Yale 78-50

The Orange are now 4-4 this season.

The Syracuse Orange improve to 4-4 on the season after a blowout 78-50 home victory against Yale, who was 1-7 prior to today’s contest. The Orange went 1-1 last week at the Emerald Coast Classic in Destin, Florida and were looking to get a win before they head to Texas A&M.

Both ‘Cuse and Yale started slow. The Orange opened the game with a Kyra Wood layup at the 9:15 mark and after a long, slow 8 and a half basketless minutes, Syracuse hit their next field goal with 0:49 seconds remaining in the first quarter. In that time, the Bulldogs crawled to a 7-point 10-3 lead, their biggest of the game.

After the second Wood layup with just under a minute remaining, the Orange went on a 6-point spurt to end the quarter just a point behind Yale. The Bulldogs shot just 21% (4-19) from the field, and the Orange 26% (4-15) in the first.

In the second quarter, the Orange looked like a whole new team, shooting a refreshing 57% (8-14) from the field. Led by 6’4 graduate student Izabel Varejão’s defense and interior scoring, ‘Cuse was able to cap off the half on a blazing 17-2 run, making it a 33-20 contest.

The Orange never slowed down from there, putting up a dominant 27-point third quarter, out-shooting, out-rebounding, and out-assisting the Bulldogs, who put up just 12 points. Yale’s weakness on the interior was amplified when leading scorer Mackenzie Egger — who is averaging a 16-point double-double on the season — found herself on the bench because of foul trouble. The third quarter ended with the Orange holding a comfortable 60-32 lead.

The fourth quarter was all cosmetic for the Bulldogs, and the Orange took their decisive 28-point victory with a final score of 78-50. The leading scorer for the Orange was Georgia Woolley with 16 points, trailed by a 12-point and 11-point performances from Izabel Varejão and Shy Hawkins, respectively.

Today was Alzheimer’s Awareness Day at the JMA Wireless Dome. Coach Felisha Legette-Jack, in her post-game presser, shared that her 91-year-old mother struggles with with Alzheimer’s, and that today’s matchup was bigger than playing a basketball game for her and her squad alike.

It was a sentiment echoed by Woolley after the game, “You have no choice but to go out and play hard,” said the guard who followed Legette-Jack from Buffalo. Let’s hope the Orange keep that mentality moving forward.