By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
Missing two senior starters Friday night, William & Mary needed a big night from
Riley Casey and plenty of help from her supporting cast. Check and check.
Casey scored eight of her 30 points in overtime, and the Tribe got career nights from
Rebekah Frisby-Smith,
Kayla Rolph and
Caitlin Wingertzahn in an 84-74 win at Elon. It was the seventh win in eight games for W&M (13-10, 8-4), which is 4-0 in overtime games this season.
The Tribe trailed 74-72 with 3:21 left in the overtime but closed with a 12-0 run. Rolph, who scored a career-high 13 points, provided the dagger with a corner 3 that made it 80-74 with 28 seconds left.
Casey and Wingertzahn each went 2-of-2 from the free throw line in the final 13 seconds to seal the win and move W&M into sole possession of third place in the CAA standings.
Frisby-Smith finished with a career-high 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting along with seven rebounds in 42 minutes. Wingertzahn came off the bench for 11 points and a career-high 11 rebounds.
Lanni Brown added five points, her career-best against a Division I opponent.
The Tribe was playing without guard
Sydney Wagner, its second-leading scorer at 15.8 points a game, and
Bre Bellamy, its top rebounder at 6 per. Each was unavailable because of an illness.
"A lot of people stepped up, and we told them that was what it was going to take," W&M coach
Erin Dickerson Davis said. "We're down two (players), but we're not out. I was like, 'People are going to make shots, so where I need you guys to step up is our energy.'
"The fact that they came out confident and made shots is something we knew they could do. We just hoped they knew they could do that. We had such a balanced attack and took very confident shots. We attacked them. We really executed the game plan the best way we could."
Casey finished one point short of the career high she had matched four times previously this season. She was 11-of-27 from the floor, 5-of-14 from the 3-point arc. But she was perfect in the overtime: 2-of-2 from the field (both 3-pointers), 2-of-2 from the free throw line, two assists, and no turnovers.
Casey's second 3-pointer of the overtime gave William & Mary the lead for good at 75-74 with 2:35 remaining. After the teams traded misses, Wingertzahn scored in the paint off a pretty feed from Casey to make it a three-point game with 1:12 left.
After Elon's Evonna McGill was called for an offensive foul, Rolph all but sealed the win with a 3-pointer from the left corner (Casey with the dish) with 28 seconds left.
After a back-and-forth game in regulation, in OT W&M went 4-of-7 from the floor, 4-of-4 from the free throw line, won the boards 6-3 and didn't commit a turnover.
"We were resilient through it all," Davis said. "We fought through some doubt, some missed shots, and we fought through fatigue. That just shows where we are and how much we've grown as a team."
It's the first time in the program's 103-year history that the Tribe has won four overtime games in a season.
The Tribe will stay in the Tar Heel State to go against North Carolina A&T Sunday afternoon in Greensboro. The Aggies are 15-8, 9-3 in the conference, after a 66-53 loss to Hampton University Thursday night.
Davis said she expects Bellamy but not Wagner to be available.
