With millions of Eagles fans flocking to the City of Brotherly Love on Friday afternoon and love in the air for Valentine's Day, the University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team used a tremendous second-half effort and strong performances from a pair of underclassmen to come away with a 71-59 victory over Yale at The Palestra.

  With the victory, the Quakers improve to 12-10 overall with an Ivy League mark of 3-6 with just five games to play. The Bulldogs now have an overall record of 2-20, going 1-8 in conference action.

 
*Penn sweeps the season series over Yale for the second time in three years. The Quakers won both games during the 2022-23 campaign.

*It's Penn's first win at home since Dec. 20 vs. Delaware State. The Quakers had lost three straight games at The Palestra going into Friday's contest.

*Mataya Gayle scored a season-high 26 points, two shy of her career-high, on eight field goals, with six assists, four rebounds, and three steals. She also was 7-of-8 from the free-throw line.

*Katie Collins had the best offensive performance of her young career on Friday night, registering a career-high 21 points (on 10-of-14 shooting) with 10 boards, four assists, five blocks, and two steals. The double-double is her fifth of the 2024-25 season so far.

*Stina Almqvist also reached double figures with 16 points and seven rebounds. She scored half of her points from the foul line. She's now just 13 points from 1,000 for her career, looking to become the 26th player in program history to achieve the milestone.

*Sarah Miller put in work off the bench, playing 22 minutes of action with four points and five rebounds.

*Penn was efficient, especially from the charity stripe, in which it shot 70.8 percent (17-for-24). The Quakers converted 24 of their 58 (41.4 percent) shot attempts from the field and were 40 percent (6-for-15) from beyond-the-arc.

*Mackenzie Egger had a double-double for Yale with 22 points and 11 rebounds, while Grace Thybulle nearly had one herself with 11 points and nine boards.

 
Penn won the opening tipoff and led off the contest on a 4-1 run. Gayle got a shot to fall for her first in the first few minutes. She had five to begin the game, Penn with a 9-5 lead at the under-5 media timeout.

Gayle continued her hot hand out of the whistle with her fourth field goal, upping the Penn lead to 11-5 with under four minutes remaining.

  The Quakers struggled shooting the ball over the final three minutes, managing two more baskets from Gayle, and led 16-9 after one period.

  Yale opened the second stanza on a 9-5 run, trimming the deficit to 21-18 with 6:47 remaining, as Mike McLaughlin took a timeout becoming the media.

Both teams traded baskets over the next five minutes with the Bulldogs briefly going out in front, 27-25, following Ana Guillen's fast-break layup following a steal with 1:10 on the clock.

  Collins continued a strong stretch with a layup under 30 seconds to go, tying the game up at 27-all heading into the locker room.

  The third quarter began pretty evenly between the two teams, with Penn holding onto a 34-33 edge with 5:56 left. That advantage was up to 36-33 at the under-five media timeout.

Abigail Long squared the game back up at 36-36 on a three-pointer with 4:26 remaining added another bucket to take a 38-36 lead and up the run to 7-4.

  Neither team got ahead by more than a field goal to close out the third stanza, Yale ending the period with two successful free throws from Grace Thybulle and a 46-44 edge.

Penn started the fourth with five unanswered points as Gayle and Almqvist got two consecutive shots to fall, going back ahead 48-46. From the 7:17 mark on, the Quakers went on an 11-0 run—capped by a Gayle three-pointer—to make it their largest lead of the game, up 12 points with 4:06 left in regulation.

While the Red and Blue ballooned the advantage to 14 points on Sarah Miller's first trey of the night, Yale was able to cut the deficit to single digits in the final two minutes, the score 66-57 with 1:37 to go.

  Gayle drilled five shots from the charity stripe in the last 90 seconds of the contest—giving her a season-high 26 points—and allowing Penn to come away with a 71-59 home victory.

 
The Quakers continue their home Ivy weekend with an extremely important game at 4 p.m. Saturday against Brown at The Palestra. The Bears, who fell 78-67 at Princeton on Friday evening, come into Saturday's game just one game ahead of the Quakers in fourth place.

  For the latest on Penn women's basketball, follow @PennWBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.