JMU’s Lady Dukes got on the busses and headed down I-81 to come to the Cassell and play a basketball game. The Lady Hokies were ready for them this year in a first big test against a tough opponent. JMU might have been a bit shell shocked by the end of the game, though. They have been used to winning against Tech over the last decade and a half (3 games). The Lady Hokies hadn’t won a game since December 2008 when they met up with JMU. This time the Hokies didn’t act like the Hokies of old when pressed
hard.
Returning the Favors
There is a tendency to try to find one particular aspect of the game being played in any final analysis of the effort. This one was flat easy; this game was all about defense. The big number was 100, and the combined over/under for the game ended up just a bucket over 100 points. For a Division 1 basketball program that might not be unusual, but it is enlightening.
The favors in the title might need a little explanation. Virginia Tech, through the decade under two coaches, has been known more as an offensive program with two level scoring, and adequate defense. The Hokies under both Kenny Brooks and Megan Duffy were never known as teams that could take being pressed hard from baseline to baseline. Tech struggled when it came to being defended with an aggressive one-on-one and floating double-team defense. Tight games and losses unfortunately came from programs like Duke, NC State, and Notre Dame who pressed the Hokies hard, often with full court presses and close guarding.
Something interesting happened when it was obvious that the Lady Dukes came to Blacksburg with the same technical game plan in mind. JMU’s team is tall and physical. They set up to take advantage of their inside height and willingness to press up close. What is pretty obvious to a program observer is that this season, Coach Megan Duffy looks like she worked to fix that long term problem. The Lady Dukes showed up looking for a wrestling match, and the Hokies responded in kind and then some. Tech had 4 blocks and 9 steals against the Dukes’ 6 blocks and 11 steals. Where the Hokies really got the edge though was in rebounds. Tech’s players pulled down 15 offensive boards in the game and 32 defensive rebounds.
Setting the Tone in the First Quarter
It looks like the JMU coaching staff set out to shove the Hokies back into a box and get them shoved into a corner in the first quarter. Tech is used to a give and take of offensive efforts early, eventually grabbing the lead, and then steadily winning exchanges to build up solid leads as quarters progressed. The Hokies were rarely heavy on defense. As mentioned, it was a weakness that several top ranked teams took heavy advantage against. The Hokies just weren’t geared for a heavy early defensive effort put on from the start.
The new look Virginia Tech Hokies were having none of ‘that’ for this one. Megan Duffy went out and got tall inside for the 2026-2027 season. Not only did she get tall, but it also looks like she got tough. The old phrase “well… have at you, then…” lit up the fans in Cassell.
The Hokies didn’t win the first quarter. They started out with the lead. It almost looked like Tech would start their customary momentum building walk away as the quarter burned away as they scored 6 points, but the clock told another story. The score was 6-0 at the 5:46 point of the quarter. Neither team looked like they had much of an offense going. JMU didn’t even drop a bucket in until nearly five minutes had ticked away. Tech had scored their eighth and final point for the quarter on a Leila Wells layup. Unfortunately, there were three minutes left in the first period and JMU had found the basket. They put up 9 unanswered points (the largest listed point run for them) and took the lead as the quarter horn sounded; 8-11. This was going to be a brawl that sort of looked like a basketball game.
Grabbing Some Mo
It looks like whatever talk they had in the corner huddle at the quarter break had an effect. Duffy can be very animated as she goes over her play chart and stats for the “group chat”. Both defenses were brutal; the refs had swallowed their whistles and scoring in this one was going to take patience and persistence.
Carleigh Wenzel seemed singularly determined to break the lid on the basket for the Hokies. She went inside to put up a shot, pull down the board, and then put it back up. The pressure and double teams just made the shots off, and they didn’t fall. After she forced a Duke turnover, she pulled up outside the arc and drained her only 3 of the evening (she only put up 4 attempts). That started the scoring for the 2nd period, but it also did a bit more for the Hokies. It was a shot of offensive adrenaline that the team was lacking in the first period.
The score would push and pull back and forth as JMU scored, but Kate Sears put her first points up with a short jumper. She was fouled on the next shot attempt after a furious back and forth, and dropped the free throw in to make in, but the 2nd shot was disallowed due to a lane violation. That score putting Tech up by a single point, 14-13, was also the turn for the game. Kate put the Hokies up by two buckets by dropping in a pull up trey on an Alyssa Latham block and Carleigh Wenzel rebound and assist.
It wasn’t a runaway, it was more like a purposeful walk, but JMU never regained the lead or the offensive momentum. Kaleo Anderson would sub in and show her long-term chops by scoring a bucket inside. She added to that by draining one from downtown to give Tech Nation a peek at what she’s going to be capable of in the future. It was, at 2 minutes on the clock, the final basket of the half. Tech led by 10, 26-16.
The 2nd Half was All About Maintenance
Tech had a 10-point lead in a game where runs were few, and buckets were dearly bought. The 3rd quarter opened up in favor of the Hokies with Samyha Suffren dropping in a big three. Madison would score the next 4 on a couple of turnovers, but Wenzel and Wells would make up for them with two layups in a row. They flip-flopped the scores and assists. Alyssa Latham would score 6-points on 3 inside buckets inside a minute and a half as Tech kept inching away. As the horn sounded and weirdly several tenths of a second put back on the clock for some reason, Aniya Trent dropped in the final bucket of the period to give the Hokies a 14-point cushion (44-30) as everyone sat down to go over the final quarter strategy.
Sometimes Walking is Good
If you had to look at things from a scoring perspective, the 3rd quarter proved the old 3rd quarter rule to a tee. For those not familiar the Gobbler Country 3rd quarter (first 10 of the 2nd half in men’s basketball) rule is pretty simple.
The Hokies clearly won the third quarter. They added to their scoring differential a critical four points. They also set themselves up with the momentum enough to keep the scoring exchange even. That will always win a basketball game with a low double-digit lead. The opposition never gains enough momentum and advantage to go on a scoring run, or series of smaller runs to get ahead.
The fourth quarter opened with another Virginia Tech score, putting them ahead of the possession exchange. Carleigh laid one in, then Kat Sears hit. Jessica Dimaro hit a bit later to give the Lady Hokies an even 50 points. It wasn’t a huge run, but it was definitely a 6-2 point add to Tech’s score. The defense on both sides kept both teams away from the baskets until Carleigh drained two from the charity stripe as the game wound down to the 3-minute mark. Dimaro would add another inside bucket, and Samyha put in the final 3 points from the free-throw line, as fouls dominated the scoring in the final minutes.
The Hokies cruised to a 59-43 win, which definitely helped the sad reality that it wasn’t a Bojangles breakfast biscuit game. A win is a win, though.
The Stats
There aren’t, with only 59 points on the board, a whole lot of laurels to hand out for this home effort. Defensive games are often accompanied by really opaque looking stats. The reason why certain numbers pop up are not really apparent because the pure numbers don’t show the on court physical situation. Shooting percentages were low for both teams, and it was obvious that the defenses were having the effect of making quality shot selection nearly impossible. Somewhere buried in some statistical summary there are the number of shots each team took under pressure of the shot clock hoping just to hit the rim to buy another 20 seconds to set up something better.
Only one player scored in double digits, and only one had double-digit rebounds; Wenzel and Dimaro respectively.
Carleigh Wenzel
This time there were no double-doubles for Carleigh. She did score 15 points that included 6 from the charity stripe. Wenzel pulled down five rebounds and pushed out 4 assists. Defensively she added to her 3 ORBs with 3 steals.
Jessica Dimaro
Dimaro had some early problems with a lid on the basket and a tall JMU post setup, but eventually she worked it into 7 points where she came up big for the Hokies was on the defensive boards with 11 rebounds on that side. She also had 3 offensive rebounds that pushed her total to 14. Dimaro also added two shot blocks and a steal on defense.
Coach Duffy played a very short bench for this game, with the starters playing the most minutes on the floor but subbing in and out frequently to keep things moving. Samyha Suffren (8, 3), Leila Wells (6, 4), and Aniya Trent (2, 6) were the starters besides Wenzel and Dimaro. The entire remainder of the bench was made up of Alyssa Latham (8, 7), Kate Sears (8, 2), Kaleo Anderson (5) and Amani Jenkins. Anderson and Jenkins didn’t play long, but Anderson had a momentum shifting scoring burst for her 8 minutes on the floor.
Facebook Gallery Pictures should be out by this evening after 5:00 PM. They are still being selected and edited.
The Lady Hokies are 3-0
The team heads to Richmond to take on the VCU Lady Rams on Thursday. We’ll try to catch the game on cranky ESPN+ and give you a summary. Sunday the Hokies host LaSalle at 2:00 in the Cassell. We might not be there, depending on physical condition after the football game and lack of time to process pictures.
