By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
After a smashing debut, William & Mary women's basketball coach
Erin Dickerson Davis showed up for her postgame press conference on the damp side. Turns out her players had doused her with water in the Tribe's celebratory locker room.
"Very full water bottles, and it was ice-cold water," Davis said. "I did not have water-proof makeup on. Rookie mistake."
Given how her night went, she'll take that.
Trailing by nine points late in the second quarter, the Tribe took over and cruised to a 79-64 win over Navy Monday night in Kaplan Arena.
Riley Casey scored all 20 of her points in the second half,
Bre Bellamy finished with 14 points and seven rebounds, and
Sydney Wagner hit the shot of the night.
Eleven players saw at least three minutes of floor time. It's hard to imagine a debut going any smoother.
"We talked for the last two weeks, probably, about what this game might look like," Davis said. "We knew they had a lot of new faces on their team, but we knew they'd play extremely hard and disciplined. Yeah, there were things we definitely need to work on, but for the most part I'm super proud of these girls.
"We missed a lot of wide-open shots today, and I think those are first-game jitters. I really do think that as we go on, those same shots we will knock down."
The Tribe shot 37.3% from the field, which won't win most games. But by hitting the offensive glass and taking care of the ball, W&M was able to take 20 more shots. The Tribe outrebounded the Mids 12-4 on the offensive end and finished plus-18 (10 committed, 28 forced) in turnovers.
"We talked about that coming into this game," Davis said. "We said if we do two things, take care of the ball and rebound the ball, we'll win."
William & Mary scored the final nine points of the second quarter to tie the game at halftime and then outscored Navy 24-13 in the third. After missing all five of her shots in the first half, Casey scored 16 points on 6-for-8 shooting, 3-of-3 from the 3-point arc.
Her first basket came on a left-handed drive. Then came a 3-pointer, and she was rolling.
"The message at halftime Coach E gave to me was to keep shooting," Casey said. "Keep attacking, stay in attack mode, and they'll start falling.
"When I'm not hitting from the outside, I try to get into the lane. Seeing the ball through the basket does help."
Navy made 11 of its first 13 shots (84.6%) to start the game and led 26-18 at the end of the first quarter. With starters
Alexa Mikeska and
Kayla Beckwith on the bench with two fouls, the Tribe fell behind 35-26 with 2:35 remaining in the second quarter.
But W&M closed with a 9-0 run sparked largely by junior
Rebekah Frisby-Smith, who hit two free throws with 3.9 seconds remaining and drew a charge with 1.2 left. That set up an inbounds pass from near midcourt.
Frisby-Smith found Wagner (13 points) curling off a pick, and she knocked down a 3-pointer in front of Navy's bench to tie the game at halftime.
"I'll be honest: That is not a play we've gone over," Davis said. "Syd just looked at me and told me she wanted the shot. So I told Nee Nee (
Chaniqwa Gilliam) to screen and Caitlin (Wingertzahn) to screen, and I hoped it would work out for us. And it did."
No doubt, Wagner's shot was a huge spark. But so was the return of Gilliam, who after missing all but six games last season with a knee injury scored eight points in 20 minutes. She changed the game with her speed, both on the offensive and defensive end.
"I was very nervous before the game started, and I told my teammates that," Gilliam said. "They did a great job of rallying behind me and picking me up, keeping me involved throughout the game."
Davis loved what she saw.
"When I first got here, we talked about playing fast," she said. "We had some spurts of that in this game, and a lot of it was triggered by Nee Nee and us being able to get the ball up the floor quickly.
"And on defense, she was causing chaos at the top. We're so happy she's back with us."
