By Dave Johnson

W&M Athletics

For the first three quarters Friday night, Eva Hodgson was mostly a spectator. In the fourth quarter, she took over.

After her teammates built a lead without her, Hodgson scored 15 of her 20 points in the final eight minutes as William & Mary pulled away for an 80-64 win over Northeastern at Kaplan Arena. It was the Tribe's fourth consecutive win and its seventh in nine games.

After playing only 12 ½ minutes through the first three quarters, Hodgson scored 13 of her team's final 16 points.

"It's always hard just watching everything, but my teammates really did a great job," Hodgson said. "They really stepped up in multiple ways."

That they did. When Hodgson picked up her second foul with 8:55 remaining in the second quarter, Northeastern led 25-21. As she sat for the remainder of the half, W&M outscored the Huskies 20-9 to take a seven-point lead at the break.

When Hodgson was whistled for her third foul diving for a loose ball with 7:02 remaining in the third, the Tribe was ahead 45-36. Playing without her the rest of the period, the Tribe lost only two points off its lead.

"We just had to make sure we focused on defense," said forward Victoria Reynolds, who had 13 of her 17 points in the first three quarters. "And we had to be smart with possessions."

When Hodgson returned for the fourth quarter, Northeastern (10-13, 6-6) went on a run. Mide Oriyomi's drive to the basket cut the Tribe's lead to 64-62 with 4:30 remaining.

But as W&M men's star Nathan Knight did the night before, Hodgson stepped up. Her drive from the left side pushed the lead back to four with 4:07 remaining. Then, after the Huskies' Katie May lost her defender on a drive to the basket, Hodgson came over and blocked her shot.

With less than four minutes left in a two-possession game, three fouls or not, it's all-out time.

"I saw my teammate got beat on the back door, so I had to shift and help," Hodgson said. "I knew at that point I shouldn't use any of my body because that's one way to get a foul called. So I just adjusted my body, and if they call a foul, they call a foul. They didn't, thankfully."

Hodgson released to Bre Bellamy, who dished to Gabby Rogers for a layup. Reynolds then got a steal, and Hodgson knocked down a jumper from the free throw line as her defender inexplicably sagged off.

Then came the dagger. After the Huskies' Stella Clark missed, W&M was running out of time on the shot clock. Sydney Wagner drove the baseline but was cut off. She passed out to the left corner to Nyla Pollard, who had to reach for the ball.

Pollard straightened herself out and hit a 3-pointer to beat the clock. That gave the Tribe a 73-62 lead with 1:55 remaining.

Hodgson took it from there with a 3-pointer and four free throws. She ended up matching her scoring average on 5-of-11 shooting from the field and 8-of-8 from the free throw line.

The Tribe, which leads the nation in free throw percentage, went 18-of-20, 10-of-10 in the fourth quarter.

After cutting the Tribe's lead to two points with 4:30 remaining, Northeastern 0-for-4 from the field with four turnovers the rest of the way. After shooting 52 percent in the first half, Northeastern hit 44 percent with 10 turnovers in the second.

"We gave up 30 points in the entire second half," W&M coach Ed Swanson said. "We were a lot more active. I thought we were a lot more engaged. We had a couple of breakdowns there, but I really thought our defense in the second half turned the tide."

The four-game winning streak is the Tribe's longest since the early weeks of the 2017-18 season. W&M kept its hold of third place in the Colonial standings.

"(We're) just trying to stay the course and get better each day," Swanson said. "And not try to get too far ahead of ourselves. This team has worked extremely hard pretty much since last season ended. We're feeling good, but we're still very uncomfortable.

"This was a good win against a really good Northeastern team that we had lost three in a row to. But we've got to change gears tomorrow morning and prepare for Hofstra. That's how this league is. You get 12, 13, 14 hours to enjoy it, and then it's back to work."