WILLIAMSBURG -
The William and Mary women's basketball team put together a dominating
all-around performance Sundaya fternoon, and cruised past George Mason
69-57 to pick up its first win in the Colonial Athletic Association.
The Tribe shot 54.2% from the field (13-24) and 86.7% (13-15) from the
line in the second half to secure the victory.
The Tribe's effort was led by junior Taysha Pye (Bronx, N.Y.),
who had a game-high 25 points to go with six rebounds. It was her 20th
career 20-point game, and her 12th game in a row scoring more than 10
points. Sophomore forward Emily Correal (Venetia, Pa.) scored 14 with seven rebounds, and also had a career-high three steals. Junior captain Katherine DeHenzel (Bowie, Md.)
was the third W&M player in double-figures, reaching 10 points as
she iced the game from the free-throw line with a 7-8 performance.
Sophomore center Jaclyn McKenna (Huntington, N.Y.) had nine points and nine rebounds to go with a game-high three assists, and classmate Taylor Hilton (Washington, D.C.) had six points, six rebounds, and two steals.
Early in the game, it looked like George Mason was going to be
firmly in control, going up by as many as seven (21-14) at the 6:50 mark
in the first half. However, a turnaround jumper by Hilton kicked off a
16-5 run for the Tribe that would consume the rest of the period.
McKenna and Katy Oblinger (Altoona, Pa.) knocked down triples on
back-to-back possessions arounda Mason three to cut the lead to two
each, and after a pair of Patriots free throws, Correal bombed in her
own three-pointer to winnow the lead down to a single point. On the
ensuing possession, GMU couldn't get a shot off in time, and Pye made
them pay on the other end of the court with a driving lay-up that put
W&M ahead 27-26. She was fouled on the play as well, and sank the
follow-up shot to give the Tribe a two-point cushion. Hilton's basket
with 41 seconds left were the only other points before the buzzer, and
the Tribe went into the lockers up four at 30-26.
GMU came out firing in the second half, and even retook a brief lead
at 37-35 four-and-a-half minutes into the final stanza. Pye answered
immediately with another jumper to tie the score for the fifth and final
time, and the College again went on an extended scoring run of 19-4 to
completely break open the game. Pye accounted for 12 of the points in
the run, en route to scoring 21 of her 25 points in the final 20
minutes. After the Tribe went up by 13, 54-41 with just over nine
minutes remaining, George Mason was unable to get closer than nine the
rest of the way. W&M entered the final minutes ahead by 11, and
after DeHenzel knocked down three of her four free throws, the Tribe was
able to simply dribble out the final 24 seconds to claim the victory.
William and Mary is back in action on Thursday night, hosting Old
Dominion in Kaplan Arena at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast live in
the Hampton Roads area on Channel 4 WSKY, and fans outside of the
viewing area can the watch the game live on TribeAthletics.com
