GREENSBORO, N.C.— Big first and fourth quarters from N.C. A&T were too much to overcome for the William & Mary women's basketball team on Thursday evening, falling 77-52 in Greensboro.
 
Monet Dance was the bright spot for the Tribe (11-17, 8-9 CAA), scoring a career-high 16 points thanks to a 7-for-10 evening at the charity stripe.
 
With the win the Aggies (18-10, 14-3 CAA) locked up the CAA regular season title and the No. 1 seed at the Credit Union 1 CAA Women's Basketball Championship in Washington, D.C. next week.
 
After a Natalie Fox layup put the Tribe on the board early, the Aggies quickly popped ahead to grab a 12-5 advantage by the 3:56 mark of the frame. The hosts momentum continued, leading 27-11 when the buzzer sounded to end the first.
 
The Aggie lead grew to 20 early in the second before the Tribe whittled it down to 11, 35-24, at the 3:40 mark of the half thanks to buckets from Dance and Bella Nascimento. Fox added an additional three points on the W&M mini-spurt.
 
From there the rest of the half was sleepy offensively with A&T leading 41-27 at the break.
 
The third began as a back-and-forth affair, with back-to-back buckets from Dance making it 43-32 Aggies with 6:39 remaining in the stanza.
 
A&T would again stretch their lead to 17 moments later. W&M would use a Nascimento jumper with 15 seconds left in the quarter to make it 56-41 after three.
 
Dance would make a triple early in the fourth to make the deficit 15, but that is as close as the Tribe would get, falling 77-52 to the regular season champions.
 
A&T posted 43% from the floor to W&M's 35.8%. The Aggies also posted a 10-for-20 mark from deep, while the Tribe owned a 41-28 edge on the glass.
 
Fox finished the evening as the Tribe's second leading scorer with nine, while Nascimento's six boards led the way.
 
Up Next
The Tribe will head to Buies Creek for the regular season finale against Campbell on Saturday at 2 p.m. The game will be broadcast on FloCollege.