The William and Mary women's basketball team continued its tradition of strong play against James Madison Thursday night, but was not able to come away with the victory in a 75-89 loss despite several outstanding individual performances. The Tribe is now 0-2 in Colonial Athletic Association play, while the Dukes improved to 2-0.
Leading the way for the College was sophomore forward Emily Correal (Venetia, Pa.), who powered her way to a double-double of 25 points and 12 rebounds. Her 25 points shattered her previous career-best of 18, and Correal also added a pair of blocks and two steals to her stat line. Classmate Taylor Hilton (Washington, D.C.) continued to impress, making the start scoring in double-digits for the fifth straight game. Hilton scored a season-high 15 points on the night, to go with five rebounds and two steals.
Also scoring in double-digits was junior guard Taysha Pye (Bronx, N.Y.), who matched Hilton with 15 points and five rebounds. Pye also had four assists and a steal while playing every minute of the game, and now has 999 career points through 73 games. Junior captain Katherine DeHenzel (Bowie, Md.) provided four assists and a steal against zero turnovers before fouling out, and also chipped in five points.
The Tribe came out of the gate firing, and held the lead several times in the first half before entering the break down 33-31. W&M took its first lead of the game at the 13:37 mark aftera 6-0 run that featured four of Correal's 10 first-half tallies, going up 13-12 on a layup. After the Dukes reopened the lead to five at 9:39, the Tribe put together a 9-2 run to go ahead 24-22. The run was finished off with five straight points from Pye, the last on a pair of free throws at the 6:13 mark. Dawn Evans tied the game two minutes later with two of her game-high 29, before Hilton nailed a triple in transition to give the home team a three-point lead at 3:09. Despite two more layups by Correal, the visitors were able to retake the lead at the free throw line, and entered the lockers up two points at the break.
Correal's personal 9-0 run for the Tribe continued into the second half, as she scored the team's first five points of the half to keep W&M within striking distance at 36-40. A traditional three-point play from Pye cut the margin as close as one, 41-42 with 16:58 on the clock, but JMU began to find its range from deep and slowly pulled away into a double-digit lead. An 11-2 run from W&M cut the lead to three with 6:20 remaining and forced a JMU timeout, and another lay-up from Correal extended the streak to 13-4 in favor of the Green and Gold to cut the margin to 67-70 with 5:50 on the clock. That was as close as the Tribe wuld be able to get, however, as the Dukes would respond to free throws with three-pointers down the stretch and build themselves to a final 89-75 lead.
William and Mary returns to the road for its next two games, beginning with a 2 p.m. tip against Northeastern Sunday in Boston.
