Five Lady Hokies score in double figures. Niagara becomes the 5th team not to get over 60 points on Virginia Tech. The Hokies put up steady pressure and despite a few dry spells pulled away from the Purple

Eagles. There wasn’t much doubt for this one. Niagara is a small program with a short bench. The Hokies were supposed to do well and push deep into their bench to get vital playing minutes for everyone.

This one pretty much went the way that everyone thought it would, but Niagara would prove to be pretty scrappy, and the Hokies still were coming up with frustrating spells where the lid was on the basket. Ultimately, though, the Lady Hokies just were too much for the Purple Eagles.

The Hokies had five players to score in double figures. Everyone who played made meaningful contributions, and the team seemed relaxed and animated from tip to final horn. That energy will be needed because the road trip coming up to Harrisonburg, and the Virgin Islands is going to be played against near peer and peer programs.

The First Quarter Rocked for Tech

Kilah Freelon won the tip with a reverse flip behind her head, but Niagara spoiled the first attempt at a Hokie score. As Freelon followed up with a drive to the basket, but the ball wound out of the basket and Niagara took their chances and Kilah took the ball back, and hit Mackie Nelson, who broke the ice by dropping in a nice jumper from just inside the arc. Kilah hit her 2nd layup attempt after an offensive rebound. Carys Baker would answer a 2-point Niagara bucket with a 3-pointer. Carleigh Wenzel blew through the Purple Eagle defense to lay her opening score into the basket. Then Mackie would be fouled going in under the basket for her own layup attempt. She drained both free throws, and Tech found itself up 11-2 before the clock ticked down to 6:00 and Niagara finally scored again. Mel Daley started her scoring, Carleigh and Kilah would both drop in buckets, as an exchange developed.

The next two minutes, however, were purely defensive for the Hokies. The bucket developed a lid as Tech had some ball control, foul, and scrappy Niagara tight defense to contend with. Mel Daley broke through on a screaming release pass from Mackie Nelson after her defensive rebound. Carys would hit another layup, and Mackie ended the quarter’s scoring effort for the Hokies from the charity stripe with two clean swishes.

The period would end on a defensive note with a shot clock violation by Niagara. Tech would manage to get Niagara to turn the ball over without a meaningful shot three times in the game. The horn blared and Tech was up 23-10.

It was More of the Same in the Second

You have to hand it to the Purple Eagles. They didn’t give up, and stayed with the Lady Hokies as much as possible, but the Tech bench started to show up in the 2nd quarter as Samyha Suffren began her scoring in the period. Amani Jenkins got some valuable early minutes on the court and scored. Mel Daley is proving to be a serious threat with that mid-range jumper from anywhere inside the arc but also proved that she could step back a few and drop in a trey.

Carys Baker ended the scoring for the period with about a minute to go with a nice one from beyond the arc, making that 2 threes for the half. The half ended without any scoring for the last minute, 51-20.

The Third Period

This is a challenge for the Lady Hokies. The last few games they have come out of the locker room after the halftime break to struggle offensively. This one was a contest with a 31-point pad to absorb the offensive issues, but ultimately Coach Duffy and her Hokies are going to have to figure out how to keep the momentum up on offense after a cool down period. Duffy was so frustrated with the missed shots and turnovers that she called a highly unusual timeout 2 minutes into the period.

The short conference and a few substitutions seemed to get the connections happening again, and Samyha pulled off an old-fashioned three-point play to break the lid on the bucket and get Tech rolling again. It was a bit of a slow roll, but Samyha’s energy and the team’s defensive efforts got some blood flowing again. We learned that Kayl Petersen has a “shot”. It seems that her move in the paint is now her signature “baby hook” and she scored with it against Niagara.

The remainder of the scoring was all the Kilah and Mel show. They were Ms. Inside and Ms. Outside for the Hokies in this one. It was 69-34 at the end of the period and it looked like Coach Duffy was getting the rest of the bench prepped to take to the court.

The Bench Emptied And…

There was Free Breakfast in the morning. The bench did, indeed empty, and Amani Jenkins got to be the winner of everyone’s Friday morning Bojangles breakfast with a free-throw. The really neat thing to see in the final quarter was the row of starters and game bench players mostly occupying chairs on the sideline while the young players got meaningful time on the court.

After Coach Duffy pulled Mackie off the court the calls were for Sophie Swanson, Amani, Aniya Trent, and Samyha. Kayl was doing some feed work from the point dishing a nice one to Sophie for a layup. Even Spela Brecelj played the remaining three and a half minutes of the game. She didn’t score any points this time, but she did pull down two defensive rebounds and push out an assist to Samyha.

What we saw on the court for the end of the 4th, was a shadow of the future Lady Hokies and it looked confident.

Significant Stats

Five players pushed into double figures for this one. There were no breakaways and no double-doubles, but this game was about playing the bench and beating some issues that are going to crop up in future more peer contests.

Mel Daley

Mel’s pure gold with that mid-range jumper. She led Hokie scoring with 13 points, but it’s not just the points, it’s when those points were scored. Daley is an ice breaker. She gets the ball in the bucket when the rest of the team is having problems getting it to fall. Being a shooting guard, Daley doesn’t get much in the way of assists, but pushed one for this game.

Samyha Suffren

She’s going to be a factor that every team will have to account for. Samyha scored 13 off the bench, grabbed 5 boards (1 ORB, 4 DRB), made 2 assists and registered a block and a steal on defense. She was a key to breaking the ice that had formed over the basket in the second half, and her effect on the team with her speed and persistence shows how much last season’s team missed with her injury. This Hokie is going to make a name for herself this season.

Kilah Freelon

From the tip off win to the constant pressure inside, Freelon has become the go to post player for the Hokies. Of course, this leave Carys Baker to do Carys things, and just adds to the Hokies’ presence under the rim and in the paint. Kilah put in 12 points on 8 attempts and two free-throws. She also pulled down six rebounds, two of which were ORBs. Her defensive work was solid, too. To go with the 4 DRBs she had 3 steals and a blocked shot. It was a solid outing for Freelon and another indicator of things to come for the season.

Mackie Nelson and Carys Baker

Mackie and Carys each scored 10. Mackie opened the scoring for the game with a nice mid-range jumper (unusual for her) and Carys nailed a trey to push the early lead out to what proved to be just beyond the Niagara ability to catch up. Mackie also led the team with 7 assists, some of which were some long-range strikes from fast break lead passes. Both players essentially put in half a game each. Nelson’s 1o points was accompanied by a team high 7 assists, and a sweet 4-4 from the foul line. Mackie also stole the ball 3 times on defense with 3 defensive rebounds to go with them. Carys pulled down 4 DRBs, and pushed out an assist of her own.

Carleigh Wenzel, Amani Jenkins, Leila Wells, Aniya Trent, Sophie Swanson, Kayl Petersen, and Spela Brecelj

If the title of this section looks suspiciously like “everyone else”, that’s because it is. Only Spela didn’t score (but she also didn’t take a shot, so there’s that).

Carleigh scored 9 points, was 4-6 from the floor, but only played 18 and a half minutes. Even with that limit she still made 3 assists, stole the ball once, and blocked a shot.

Amani scored a season high 5 points. The freshman forward also pulled down 5 rebounds blocked 3 shots, and stole the ball once. She also played nearly 16 minutes of the game and is showing what the Hokies can expect in the future.

Leila scored 4 points and pulled down 5 boards and pushed an assist.

Aniya scored her first collegiate bucket in this one. She finished with 3 points and contributed a steal and an assist for her 8 minutes on the court.

Sophie was subbed in and out starting in the first half, and finally connected in the second off of a nice feed from Kayl Petersen. She also contributed 3 rebounds two of which were offensive.

Kayl for whatever reason just didn’t seem to shoot all that much for this one. She registered 2 points which came off of a grand total of 2 attempts. She did get some quality work inside with 4 rebounds (2 ORB, 2 DRB), a block and a steal. Kayl also pushed out 3 assists.

Spela played the final 3 and a half minutes, and as noted before registered 2 boards and pushed out an assist. Her final rebound was the game ending grab.

There are Still Lessons to be Learned

The team is still working on things; this game was obviously being used by the coaches to get some quality time on the court for the bench players. There was definitely a benefit to that since the subs all had a positive impact on the game.

The big challenge that the Lady Hokies will have is beating their stretches of not scoring. A minute in basketball is a lifetime, and multiple attempts without results can end up handing an opponent a game on a big run. Coach Duffy’s staff is well aware of the need to figure it out, since that timeout at 2 minutes into the 3rd made a difference. Coaches hate to burn timeouts in “non-critical” times of the game, but sometimes “critical” is a matter of judgement. A team that’s behind 30 points having a 8–10-point unanswered run is not necessarily an emergency, but burning a timeout to get the team refocused and putting in a few plays and sets to alter the flow and get the points rolling again was certainly the right thing to do.

This Sunday the Hokies hit I-81 for the bus trip to Harrisonburg and a game at closer to peer James Madison. We’ll see how the adjustments go. The fall tournament in the Virgin Islands is going to be a challenge with opponents like BYU and either Vanderbilt or Oregon State.

December brings a home stretch with the ACC/SEC challenge against Florida and then three days later the ACC season opens against Duke. The Hokies will have one more ACC game (a road trip to Tallahassee to face FSU) before the holiday break.