COLLEGE PARK, Md.— The William & Mary women's basketball team hung tough for 25 minutes against Maryland on Thursday before the No. 8 Terps showed why they're national title contenders, pulling away for a 107-57 win in front of a sellout crowd at XFINITY Center.
 
Bella Nascimento, who's 16 points led the way for the Tribe, converted a 3-point play at the 6:46 mark of the third quarter to make it an 11-point game. From there Maryland would outscore W&M 54-15 to earn the win.
 
The called sellout of 17,950 makes it the largest crowd for any W&M women's basketball game. Over 15,000 of those in attendance were children from 80 local schools in the College Park area as apart of Maryland's "Field Trip Day".
 
Kayla Rolph, who was coming off a career-high 21 in the Tribe's win over SC State, put the visitors on the board via a corner 3-pointer 90 seconds in to make it 3-2 W&M.
 
The next six points belonged to the Terps, with their lead eventually growing to nine before Aislinn Gibson's first career triple brought the score to 16-10.
 
Jana Sallman and Nascimento each added buckets down the stretch of the first as Maryland would hold a 23-14 lead after 10 minutes.
 
Rebekah Frisby-Smith and Emma West got the Tribe out to a 5-0 start in the second, as West's bucket from behind the arc cut the lead to 23-19 with 8:15 to play in the half.
 
The Terps responded with a 21-2 run spanning the next six minutes.
 
W&M found its offense again in the last 1:40, scoring nine points, but could do no better than trading buckets with Maryland.
 
Rolph's capped the quarter, hitting a deep two-pointer as time expired, sending the game to the half 49-30.
 
Sallman's six points led a balanced Tribe attack at the break, with nine different W&M players scoring in the first 20 minutes.
 
The Tribe's most spirited run of the game came out of the halftime break and was spearheaded by Nascimento.
 
The Grafton, Mass. native knocked down back-to-back from deep to quickly make it a 13-point game.
 
Frisby-Smith added a free throw and Geddes a lay-up before Nascimento converted the hoop and harm that would cut it to 53-42 at the 6:46 mark.
 
From there the hosts took over, exploding for 26 points over the last six minutes and change to lead 79-50 after three.
 
The Terps didn't stop there closing the game out with a 28-7 effort in the fourth to secure the 107-57 win.
 
W&M finished the game 23-of-67 (34.3%) from the floor and 7-for-30 (23.3%) from deep while Maryland posted marks of 32-of-72 (44.4%) and 8-for-27 (29.6%). The Tribe finished 4-for-6 from the line while the Terps took 44 more tries from the stripe, going 35-for-50. The 50 attempts from the line are tied for seventh-most in Big Ten history.
 
Sallman joined Nascimento in double figures with a career-high 11, while Gibson's six and West's five were also good for career-bests. Sallman also added a team-best five rebounds while Geddes handed out four assists.
 
Up Next
The Tribe will have a two week break during the holidays before kicking off CAA play. W&M will host Hampton in its conference opener on Jan 3. Tip is set for 7 p.m. at Kaplan Arena and will be broadcast on FloCollege.