Women's soccer caps historic regular season with 3-2 win at Yale, awaits NCAA opponent

Saturday, November 6

New Haven, Conn.

1:00 PM

Brown University

12-3-0, 7-0-0

Yale University

3-14-0, 1-6-0

Brown

Yale

Photo by: David Silverman Photography

Women's soccer caps historic regular season with 3-2 win at Yale, awaits NCAA opponent

11/6/2021 4:55:00 PM | Women's Soccer

Box Score

NEW HAVEN, CONN. – The Brown women's soccer team defeated Yale 3-2 Saturday afternoon to finish the regular season 7-0 in Ivy League play for the first time in program history. With the win, the Bears also become outright Ivy League Champions, after claiming at least a share of the title last week.

Brittany Raphino scored all three goals for Brown to bring her team and Ivy League-leading totals on the year to 11 goals and 28 points. It's the first time in the junior's career that she scored three goals in an Ivy League game.

"We knew today was going to be a battle and credit to Yale, they battled hard and didn't make it easy for us," head coach Kia McNeill said. "We have some special players in our attack, Brittany being one of them, and she really put the team on her shoulders to make sure we got a result today."

The Bulldogs got on the board first with a seventh-minute goal, but the Bears were unphased. Zoe Maxwell drew a foul in the box to earn a penalty kick. Raphino buried it into the top right corner to tie the game at one.

The Bears would take the lead just four minutes later when Maesyn G'Bye sent a long ball down the middle of the field to Raphino who beat a defender and the goalie to make it 2-1 Bears.

Yale converted on a corner kick to bring a 2-2 tie into halftime.

After a back-and-forth first half, Brown owned the second 45. The Bears took eight shots and earned 11 corners in the second half. On the other end of the field, the Brown defense switched it into another gear, not allowing Yale to get a single shot off.

On Brown's final corner of the game, in the 75^th minute, Sheyenne Allen curled a beautiful ball to the near post that Raphino got her head to and flicked home for the hat trick and the lead.

The Bears held on to the lead for the final 15 minutes to claim the victory, their eighth straight. The win ties the team's eight-game winning streak from 2019 as its longest since 2000.

On the day, Brown outshot Yale 18-3 and earned 13 corners to the Bulldogs four.

"I think today's game also just shows how good this league is from top to bottom," McNeill said. "The Ivy League is not the same that it was 10-15 years ago, it's one of the top conferences in the country. With the season we have had, both nonconference and now going undefeated in conference, this team deserves a tremendous amount of respect. It's not easy to do what we just did, and we hope to continue this momentum into the NCAA Tournament."

Having already clinched the Ivy League's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, the Bears will now await to see who they take on in the first round. The NCAA DI Women's Soccer selection show is set to air on Monday, November 8th at 4:30 p.m and will be streamed on NCAA.com.