By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics

With classes still on break, there's been some spare time for the William & Mary women's basketball team. And no reason for not coming to the gym to put up a… couple hundred extra shots.

Not the most exciting activity, maybe, but on Sunday afternoon, it paid off. In an 81-67 win over the College of Charleston, the Tribe made 14 3-pointers — a Kaplan Arena record and the second-most in program history — and shot a season-best 54.4% from the floor.

Riley Casey scored 31 points on 11-of-19 shooting, 7-of-12 from deep. She became the first player in program history to score at least 30 points three times in a single season. Rebekah Frisby-Smith set a career-high with three makes from behind the arc, while Sydney Wagner and Alexa Mikeska had two each.

"Now that they're in break, we have lots of time when they're just getting shots up," Tribe coach Erin Dickerson Davis said. "I'm glad they see that translates.

"I know they don't want to have to come back a little bit later and just get shots up. But they did it, and it definitely paid off."

Nobody benefited more than Casey, who shot 50% in the game, the first time since back-to-back 31-point nights in late November.

"We've been working on shots on the move and in game-time situations," she said. "My teammates were looking for me once I hit a few, so it was nice to get a couple more going. And when everyone's hitting, it's easier for people to drive in the lane and for the posts to get open."

Five of the Tribe's 14 3-pointers came during a 19-0 run that overlapped the first and second quarters and turned a 17-21 deficit into a 36-21 lead. Casey and Mikeska had two each, and Wagner knocked down one.

W&M (6-8, 1-2 CAA) was 8-of-10 at one point before cooling off a bit late in the second quarter. The squad was 9-of-16 at halftime.

But, interestingly enough, the tone was set by defense. On the game's first play, Bre Bellamy came off a high ball screen to help Mikeska double-team Charleston guard Jada Logan. That led to a turnover … but also a fairly long delay with a clock issue.

"I'm looking at the referees like, 'We had a little bit of momentum, and the clock stopped it!'" Davis said. "But it did carry them through the first quarter, and I'm glad they believed and attacked it head-on."

The Tribe scored on five consecutive possessions and took a 17-11 lead on two Kayla Rolph free throws with 4:19 left in the opening frame. Charleston (6-8, 1-3) then scored 10 straight points to go ahead 21-17 at 2:22.

Then came the Tribe's 19-0 run, during which it went 7-of-8 from the floor (5-of-7 from deep). W&M led 45-36 at halftime and 63-50 after three quarters before effectively putting the game away with a 13-5 run to start the fourth.

It was Davis' first CAA win as the Tribe's head coach. More importantly to her, it ended a three-game losing streak, two in conference play.

"What makes this win special is … the adversity our team faced the last couple of games and their ability to come together," Davis said. "I feel like we had the momentum for the whole game.

"The last three games we lost were all on the road. Going into somebody's home is always a lot more difficult, especially as a team that's trying to grow and learn things. Being at home in our comfort zone, our crowd was really loud today. It helps the overall flow of the game."

The Tribe will go back on the road again Friday at Towson (6-7, 1-2), which defeated Hampton University 86-47 Sunday afternoon. After that, W&M will return to Kaplan for games against Drexel (Jan. 15) and Hampton (Jan. 19).