By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
The College of Charleston took over the pace in the third quarter, but William & Mary surprisingly kept up. Then came the final 10 minutes, when the Tribe fell behind.
Leading by five points heading into the fourth period, the Cougars pulled away for an 87-71 win Sunday afternoon at Kaplan Arena. The Tribe finished with its highest point total of the season against a Division I opponent, but it did so playing Charleston's way.
"We worked on controlling the pace, because we can't play the way they play," William & Mary coach Ed Swanson said. "That third quarter was fool's gold a little bit. We just ran out of gas there in the fourth quarter.
"We're not real deep, and I thought Charleston's pressure wore us down in the fourth quarter. We ran out of gas, but I was real proud of our effort. I thought we played hard and made some progress from last weekend."
Riley Casey helped W&M (5-9, 0-3 CAA) keep pace with a season-high 27 points, 25 of which came in the first three quarters. She knocked down seven 3-pointers, tied for second most in program history, in 14 attempts.
Dani McTeer finished with 13 points and five rebounds. Sydney Wagner added 11 points along with nine assists, and Kate Sramac had 10 points.
Charleston led 32-27 at halftime before getting its tempo established in the third quarter. Each team scored 28 points. The Cougars shot 59% and went 6-of-10 from the 3-point arc. The Tribe shot 60% and went 4-of-9.
The Tribe took its final lead on a Wagner jumper, which made it 48-47 with 4:07 left in the third. The Cougars then scored the game's next 10 points and never trailed again.
W&M was still close going into the fourth down 60-55. But Charleston got started with an Anika McGarity 3-pointer and a pair of free throws to make it a 10-point game less than a minute into the fourth quarter.
W&M shot 46.6% from the field, second this season to 54% against Division III Randolph College. The Tribe's 18 assists were its most since Nov. 16 against Navy.
But Charleston, which came in 19th nationally at 78.3 points a game, outshot its host. After making 2-of-16 3-point attempts in the first half, the Cougars went 10-of-16 the rest of the way. McGarity scored 22 of her 25 points in the second half on 6-of-10 shooting from deep.
"We're not playing a lot of players now — about seven deep," Swanson said. "I thought we had heavy legs in the second half. They did a great job of finding those shooters."
Casey finished four points short of matching her career high of 31 points set while at Columbia. Ten of her points came in the third quarter on 4-of-6 shooting, 2-of-4 from deep.
It was her third game after missing nearly four weeks with an injury.
"She had a really good week of practice," Swanson. "Even when you come back from an injury, you're not 100% confident. I saw a different player today. She had a tremendous game."
Although he never likes a loss, Swanson saw some positives that he hopes his team can build on before playing at Hofstra Friday and Northeastern Sunday.
"This was the first really good, hard week of practice we've had in a long, long time," he said. "We made some progress from last week to this week. Hopefully, we can have those same sort of practices this week and go up north and get the results we want."
