The Lady Hokies have made it seven games in a row, with another quality win over archrivals the Lady Cavaliers in the first of two Commonwealth Clashes. It was another battle through 3 quarters and pull away in the 4th.
This is How the Game Went…
The Lady Hokies didn’t get chased off of the baseline for this one. Often UVA will use its deep bench to play a physically tough brand of basketball and has been famous for taking it to the Hokies over the last few seasons with their current coaching staff. This time the Lady Hokies stood
in, matched the Hoos inside, took the fouls and sometimes dished a few out.
Just two and 2/3rds minutes into the 3rd period, with the score tied, 37 up, Mackie Nelson comes flying in from nearly half court on an offensive rebound and feed, back past the top of the key, to take the ball to the basket with some sort of outside-in backwards over the shoulder no-spy knuckle ball layup to break the tie and flip the exchange in favor of the Hokies. The key to the shot of the game was Leila Wells, in close chasing her own offensive rebound and feeding a streaking Nelson for the feed (it should have been an assist, folks). Yes, Carys and Carleigh hit some from outside, but this game was won in the paint, under the basket, keeping the game close, and not letting the Wahoos win the physical battle inside.
No Big Hoo Runs! Stay Close!
The first quarter was certainly a surprise to most knowledgeable fans. The Hokie defense was stout. Hoo star Kymora Johnson didn’t score in the first 10 minutes. She attempted to but was just not connecting. Tech was hustling to give her bad looks with tight coverage. UVA isn’t all Johnson, however, and they have other quality players behind her.
The reality was that neither team was hitting well in the early going. Carleigh Wenzel, Samyha Suffren (off the bench), and Leila Wells but they were all inside attempts on pull up short jumpers or layups. Tech would hold UVA to 4 points until almost 8 minutes of the period had ticked away. The closest thing to a UVA run happened when the lid came off for them and stayed for the Hokies. Tech was stuck at 10 points for that final two minutes while the Hoos managed to get the ball in the bucket for 8 total points. It wasn’t smooth but they had the lead at the 1st quarter horn: 10-12.
The big thing to note besides the really low score for the quarter, was the tough inside play going on. The Hokies were not backing off. Coach Duffy, now confident of her full 8 to 9 starting players, just kept the substitutions going. It was probably a strategy of meeting UVA’s sub rate to keep foul counts down and provide a rest break for such heavy inside work.
Not Much Changed in the 2nd – Except the Outcome
No team is going to keep a star player like Kymora Johnson in a bag for long, and the Hoos used the momentum gained in the last two minutes of the 1st, to get Johnson heated and hitting. She accounted for all 8 of the Hoo points by sandwiching a two-pointer with two deep threes. Meanwhile the Hokies had only managed to get to the charity stripe and miss two of their six allocated free-throws. After Johnson’s second 3-pointer went in, Tech had to figure something out.
The Hoos were threatening to accelerated away into a big run, and the Hokies needed to figure out a way to get the ball into the bucket from the floor. Leave that one to Carleigh. She drove the key, dropped in a layup and drew the foul for the old fashioned 3-point play. That narrowed the Cavalier lead to 17-20, and got Carleigh on a roll. While the defense managed to get some better control over Johnson and slowed the UVA scoring. Wenzel would drop in a three pointer to tie the score at 20 all with half the quarter gone.
The final five minutes of the quarter proved to be pretty decisive in setting up the remainder of the game, especially for Mackie Nelson who dropped in a free throw to take a slim one-point lead. With some defensive work, Tech kept the Hoos from passing and with the score 21 up, Kayl Petersen pushed Tech out front on a layup assisted by Mackie. Kayl swiped the ball from the Hoo’s other big player Gabby White and then fed Samyha Suffren for a layup that pushed Tech’s lead to 4 points.
UVa would narrow that back to 2-points but Mackie drained one from outside the arc to stretch it out to 5, gaining a point on the exchange. Every point was counting in this one. Mackie would score the final two points in the period for the Hokies on 2 free-throws, but UVA was definitely not going away and pulled back to within two just before the buzzer. Tech was still leading as the teams headed for the locker rooms: 30-28.
Something About that Third Quarter Rule
Momentum. With 8 minutes and 30 seconds on the 3rd quarter clock, the Lady Cavaliers would sneak ahead of the Hokies on a three-point play they took a one-point lead. That lasted exactly 16 seconds. Carleigh would take the ball to the bucket and push the exchange to the Hokies’ advantage. That was the last time that the Hoos led in the game. They’d tie it at 37, but that was the extent of their offensive push for the remainder of the contest. Mackie Nelson hit that impossible shot off of Leila Wells chasing her own miss and feeding Nelson on a run up the key. We’ve seen the tape (above). When a player hits one of those “things”… the other team begins to wonder. Carys Baker then had a major offensive wakeup and dropped in 2 points from the paint. And followed up with that momentum solidifying trey, assisted by the other half of the Connecticut Corner, Mackie Nelson.
Yes, for the period, the Hoos would close within one point, briefly, but Tech would push it back out. Mackie Nelson hit a free-throw and Tech would hold that 48-46 lead for the next two minutes when Carys drained another three to bump the score out to +5 for the Hokies. Tech would stay with the exchange and end the quarter with that 5-point lead as Mackie closed the Hokies’ scoring for the period with a layup and two from the stripe.
Carys and Carleigh were unstuck, and Mackie just kept pushing. Of course, there was a penalty for all of the defense going on, but that was happening to both sides this time. Major players on both benches pushed into foul out territory, and this was not time for a “carefully played” basketball game. The period ended on what could usually be counted on as a fragile lead (55-50), but that critical factor “the mighty MO” was all Hokie.
Slamming the Door
That five-point lead would grow and shrink over the first half of the 4th quarter, but the Lady Hoos just couldn’t manage to get enough of a run going to make up the distance. If they scored, Tech scored. Now, that frustration for the opposite reasons might have been occurring to the Hokies as well. They stayed on the exchange but just couldn’t manage to put enough of a comfortable buffer up.
Carleigh Wenzel broke the 5-point spell with a bucket, and then a free throw that put Tech up by 8 points. The reality of that was, given the intense level of defense, that spread was going to be difficult for the Hoos to make up with 3:19 on the clock and a bunch of players in serious foul trouble.
It was a nearly a full minute of push and pull where neither team scored, but that lid was removed by the Hokies’ other secret weapon for the game, Samyha Suffren. Her layup at the 2:14 mark gave the Hokies (or either team, for that matter) a 10-point double-digit lead). The Hoos had really stopped hitting consistently from the floor, and were only getting traction at the free-throw line.
That’s when Carys Baker pretty much ended any hopes of a Wahoo comeback with this swish.
You’ll notice that the tweet comment from Hokie Sports says it all, “DAGGER”. Carys drains it pushes into double figures for the game and slams the door on the Lady Cavaliers. The remainder of Tech’s points came off of the nearly obligatory foul shots that pile up at the end of the game. Carleigh even managed to drain the 75th point that earned the crowd a Monday morning Bojangles breakfast sammie. Smithfield was also sponsoring a pound of bacon give away, so the crowd had some serious goodies to add to the pantry.
The final horn blared and the Hokies dribbled away a satisfying win over their archrivals in an exciting, close game right up until the end.
Time for the Numbers
The Hokies had four players in double figures for this one; Carleigh Wenzel, Mackie Nelson, Samyha Suffren, and Carys Baker. Carys joined the parade with that deep swish in the 4th quarter. Even the single digit scoring players contributed significantly to the game effort. Nobody double-doubled, but rebounds were spread across the playing squad, and significant pushes to the board kept the Hokies within one rebound of the Hoos, 40-41. In a tight game, that number is critical.
The other critical number and the one that affects players, time on the floor, and aggressiveness of play are the number of fouls being dished out by the refs. The objective numbers on the stat line says something a bit different than what the crowd in Cassell thought. The Wahoos were a fouling machine and kept it up even when the game was effectively out of reach and the “foul game” in the last 90 seconds of the game was just a waste of time. UVA was called for 28 personal fouls. Tech was awarded 38 free throws and only made 25 of them. The coach, even with the win, isn’t going to be thrilled with a 66% effort from the charity-stripe. Not only did UVA pile up the fouls, but also had a critical bench player, Paris Clark, foul out. They also had three other players with 4 PFs up on the board.
Now, that also goes both ways to a degree. Tech was smacked with 20 PFs. Carys, Samyha Suffren, and Kilah Freelon were all marked with 4 personals by the end of the game. The foul count, early, on Kilah seriously limited her playing time. What’s interesting is that other than a few breaks here and there, Coach Duffy chose to keep Carys in the game, risking a foul out, but keeping her best defense on the floor.
The fact remained that if Tech had managed to hit their average number of foul shots in this one, the score wouldn’t have been so close for most of the game. The coaching staff will probably have something to say about that.
Carleigh Wenzel
Carleigh led the team in points with 23 and probably would have had at least 6 more if she’d hit from the charity stripe for her usual percentages. It seemed to be a pretty frustrating struggle for her in this one. But Wenzel was a foul target for the game she was awarded 20 shots. Interestingly enough and showing her technical improvements she was only called for 2 personals. Besides her 23 points, Carleigh also pulled down 6 boards (1 ORB, 5 DRB) pushed 5 assists and blocked a shot. This was her 7th game in double figures. (Does anyone see the pattern here? Seven wins, seven times Carleigh goes over 9 points?) Wenzel also registered a block on defense.
Mackenzie Nelson
If you really want to know who turned this game and made the biggest difference on the floor, look no further than the Hokies’ talented but unflashy Redshirt Sophomore hybrid Guard. Someone really needed to step up and put a charge into the Hokies as the game began to devolve into a low scoring slug fest featuring a UVA walk away. It was that mid-point in the 3rd quarter wild and unexplainable layup that completely flipped the game momentum in favor of the Hokies. Nelson never shoots enough, but in this one, what she shot, counted. She was 3-7 from the floor, but that included 1-3 from beyond the arc. That means that she sank 2-4 short range attempts. Then you add to those numbers with her 8-12 from the stripe, and suddenly Mackie ends up with a critical 15-point game. Nelson’s 5 assists tied with Carleigh, and she grabbed 2 defensive rebounds and stole the ball once.
Here is Evan Hughes with the call of the game and a separate camera angle on that impossible layup.
Samyha Suffren
Coach Duffy doesn’t seem to run the “starter vs. bench player” thing the same as other coaches. Suffren doesn’t start, but that’s not how she fits in. Coach Duffy seems to use her as a burst of nitrous in a drag racer. Suffren gets in to quicken the pace on the floor, make feisty defensive moves, and drive the ball into the paint on offense. This game was no exception. Suffren was 5-12 (12 points) from the floor with 5 rebounds and an assist. If you look at the play-by-play detail, each time she arrived on the court, something positive happened for the Hokies. It was another solid performance for her.
Carys Baker
Carys had 4 PFs. That’s not a smack against her, that because Baker was blanketed, and UVA was concentrating on negating her influence on the game. A good team is always going to try to freeze out the opponent’s best player(s) and Baker, though affable and kind off the court, doesn’t seem to put up with much nonsense on it. Carys hadn’t scored very much before her two critical 3-point buckets in the game, but her arcing swish in the 4th dropped the Lady Hoos’ hopes of a comeback to zero. It also pushed her past the 9-point barrier to 11. Carys was a red hot 3-5 from long range. She also had 6 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. It was another total effort game from the Connecticut Corner for this one.
Leila Wells, Kilah Freelon, and Kayl Petersen
Leila went 3-5 from the floor for 7 total points, with that wicked feed to a streaking Mackie Nelson not being counted as an assist. Technically, no it wasn’t but we know the truth. Wells also notched a rebound (her own) off that play. Kilah played a bit over half the game due to early foul trouble. She did manage to hit 2 of her four shot attempts, but Freelon is more about rebounds than point glory and hit her two free-throws for a total of 6 points. Even with a shortened stay on the floor, she pulled down a team high 7 rebounds. Kayl got in a couple of times to spell foul troubled players. She was 1 of 2 from the floor and pulled down 2 rebounds.
Aniya Trent contributed 4 rebounds, a team high 3 blocks, and a steal. She only took a single shot, and it didn’t register, but Trent’s contribution did. Keep an eye on this Freshman. She’s going to be a special player.
Here’s the ACC Network highlight review of the game.
Next Up, a Long Road Trip
In winter weather, the team loads up the charter and heads west to South Bend, IN to take on the Lady Fighting Irish. This is a sort of a homecoming for Coach Duffy, and hopefully at the end it is unwelcomed by the hosts. It’s a 7PM tip-off on February 5th.
