By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
It had been more than two weeks since William & Mary last played. The same was true of James Madison.
In Friday night's conference opener for both teams, one handled the layoff better than the other. The Dukes never trailed and held the Tribe to its lowest point total of the season in a 67-39 win at Atlantic Union Bank Center in Harrisonburg.
Playing for the first time since Dec. 19, W&M (5-7, 0-1 Colonial Athletic Association) shot a season-low 25% from the field and went 3-of-22 from the 3-point arc. The Tribe was 3-of-17, 1-of-7 from deep, in the first quarter in falling behind 19-7.
"We've got to start the games off better," W&M coach Ed Swanson said. "We got shots, but we have to knock them down. We've got to change how we play, and we didn't change anything until the second half. We're not built to get a double-digit deficit and come back.
"They attacked more from the start, and we weren't in attack mode from the start. We've got to do more offensively. We've got to be more efficient and share the ball more. We had too many people with terrible shooting nights."
The Tribe's lone bright spot was Bre Bellamy, who matched her season high of 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field, 4-of-4 from the free throw line. She also had five rebounds, second on the team behind Sydney Wagner with eight.
"She practiced with great energy this week," Swanson said of Bellamy. "I expected her to play well tonight."
Annalicia Goodman led the Dukes with 16 points on 8-of-12 shooting and 12 rebounds.
JMU (5-7, 1-0) took a 31-14 lead at halftime thanks largely to two runs. The first came after Bellamy's 3-pointer cut the Dukes' lead to 7-5 with 5:20 remaining in the first quarter. Madison outscored W&M 10-0- over the next three minutes and took a 17-5 lead.
The next came after five consecutive points from Kate Sramac cut the Dukes' lead to 19-12 midway through the second quarter. JMU scored eight unanswered points and went ahead 27-12 with 3:15 left in the first half.
At the break, the Tribe had held Madison scorer Kiki Jefferson to two points on 0-of-5 shooting. Her teammates went 12-of-23, 5-of-10 from the 3-point arc.
"I felt good at halftime with how bad we shot the ball to only be down 31-14," Swanson said. "But the first five minutes of the second half, we weren't on point defensively. And that was game."
Next for the Tribe is a Sunday afternoon game at Towson Sunday at 1 p.m. The Tigers are 10-1 after Friday night's 66-54 win over Elon in their conference opener.
"Towson is super athletic, and they're an attacking team," Swanson said. "We're going to have our hands full again."
