The Third Quarter Rule has its exceptions, and the Hokies nearly made it come true, again. The Lady Hokies dominate the first half, only to run into major problems in the 2nd. They hold on to win it in the last second on 2 Carleigh Wenzel free-throws after leading by as much as 23 points.
Okay! A win is a win, but this one nearly melted into an embarrassing loss. Coach Duffy’s interesting comments at the end of the contest might have given away the store for what’s going to happen at practice before
the ACC Tournament begins for Tech on March 5th. But let’s go over the season end particulars before heading into the game details and stats.
The 2025-2026 Regular Season is Over
The reality of the result is that the Hokies were fundamentally ignored by the media while coming up with an impressive 22-8 overall record, with a 12-6 ACC mark to go with it. That earned Tech a game 1 bye and a 6th seed in the ACC Tournament, and probably enough brownie points to earn an invitation to the Women’s Beeg Shew… Selection Sunday is going to be interesting for the Lady Hokies this season.
Considering that the revamped and reworked 2024-2025 Lady Hokies were 19-13 last season, and a 9-9 ACC record there is very little to complain about. Head Coach Megan Duffy has imprinted her style and influence on the program, and the improvement from year one, in year two is impressive, indeed. If that big tournament invitation comes in, it’ll be even more impressive.
What isn’t particularly good is how much the media ignored this team. There were no superstars, only leaders and hard workers. There were no flashy players with dominant possessions and scoring records being sprinkled around. What you saw was a team with solid talent taking maximum advantage of unselfish play. Maybe the football team should bring the Lunch Pail to the locker room and let the team bring it to the ACC Tournament. They certainly carried it well this season.
The Tale of Two Very Different Halves
Basketball can be almost as inscrutable as baseball in many respects. Virginia Tech travelled to Charlottesville on March 1st and was faced with a really oddball 12:00 tip-off. The commentary team on the floor from the ACCNetwork included Kelly Gramlich so the coverage might have had something to do with the situation. But 12:00 is really early to get started.
And wow did the Lady Hokies get started. In the first half they seemingly couldn’t miss a shot, and UVA’s best player, the ever-dangerous Kymora Johnson, was kept in check on defense. After their other prime player Paris Clark won the tip and scored the first two points of the game, that’s where the Hoos sat for 5 minutes and 10 seconds before they scored another point.
In the meantime, Carys Baker knocked down a trey followed by 2-point buckets from Leila Wells and Kilah Freelon… and then Carys buried another one from downtown. Leila hit a three, with 5:26 on the clock, and Tech found itself on a 13-2 run. The Hoos did score on a pair of free-throws, and Tech did hit a dry spot, though.
Kilah, and Carleigh dropped in 2 from the charity stripe, each, and then Carys drained another three-pointer. Carleigh would join the three-point parade, and then after Mel Daley dropped in two free-throws, would close the scoring with a short jumper right before the horn.
You have to wonder how the Wahoo side of the crowd in JPJ felt about the horn sounding on the 1st with the Hokies blazing far out in front, 27-13.
The Hokies Played the Exchange for the 2nd
It’s difficult to say what changed as the last half of the 1st faded into the 2nd quarter, but UVA is too good to be too buried for too long. They needed momentum desperately and maybe playing the exchange for the period helped them gather themselves. Tech won the 2nd quarter but only by a point. Neither team managed to get much going, and both had a dry spell for over a minute, but this quarter the Lady Wahoos managed to keep pace within the period.
Tech’s foul count began to build, and Coach Duffy began to go deeper into her bench for substitution work. The foul calls in the game were definitely not even, with the Hoos finishing with 19 and Tech with 24. Those are always head scratching differences and a 5 foul difference between teams is concerning. What looked like it might be a tide changer though was Kymora Johnson scoring her first point of the half for the Hoos. That single foul shot would be her only point for the first half. That definitely didn’t last, though.
The half ended with the Hokies still well in control of the game, but their grip was slipping on a par 2nd period.
Oops! The 3rd Almost Spelled Disaster
It really started in the 2nd quarter, but UVA started changing up their defensive and offensive strategies in the 2nd quarter. They managed to stop the bleeding with a swarming 3-2 zone defense that took advantage of their ACC leading shot blocking and slight height advantage. The key to getting their offense moving was getting Kymora Johnson back into the game. Tech had successfully frozen her out in the first half, that would not be the case in the 2nd. Star players are star players for a reason, and the Hoos weren’t going to be held down to that embarrassing a level for long. It also looked like Duffy was trying to get the pace slowed down and stretch out exchanges so that the clock burned off between possessions. That meant the Hoos started to run, and Tech started to stall. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it just fouls up the gearing in the machine.
The story of the 3rd was written in nearly the first 4 minutes of play. It took a 3-pointer from Mackie Nelson to get past the 43 points that Tech spent not attempting shots and turning the ball over. The Hokies only managed to put up 2 attempts in the first two and a half minutes. Meanwhile the Hoos put in 4 buckets in quick succession from inside. That 8-0 run included 6 points from a previously stuffed Kymora Johnson, she kept it up the entire quarter. Meanwhile, Tech sporadically managed to hit a shot here and there to slow the UVA momentum, but as the quarter drew to a close, UVA had flipped the table, and the Virginia Tech runaway had turned into a one or two possession battle to the final horn.
The Hoos had outscored the Hokies 29-18, made up the embarrassing difference, and made the Hokies look twice at how to stop the charge. The 3rd quarter ended with UVA pressing hard at 61-57.
Hokies Hang On; Carleigh Shuts the Door
Well, there was a short bench. There was a lost 23-point lead. Then there was the 4th quarter and solving the puzzle of how to keep the “W” leaning in the direction of the Hokies. It was a two-bucket game against a peer team with a red-hot star player and few answers on how to stop the bleeding. The Tech was scoring, but not nearly enough. Their defense had started to struggle, and the whistles from the refs had slowed things down on both sides of the court. Up until the middle of the 3rd, and even the end, the Hokies had managed to keep UVA off balance and out of timing, especially in the first half. That wasn’t working in the late third and most of the 4th. The game hinged on who would score last, and how much time was on the clock for a response.
The Hoos might have had Kymora Johnson (evidently nicknamed “Mo”) but the Hokies had Carleigh Wenzel with scrappy inside support from the Connecticut Corner. Carys Baker and Mackie Nelson played super basketball in this one. Kilah Freelon worked past her foul troubles to play a critical role in slowing UVA’s scoring and even contribute critical points in the period. In fact, the final three minutes neither team scored from the floor. The game ended up being determined at the charity stripe.
The story of the fourth quarter started with Carleigh dropping in a trey to stay in front and then sinking two single buckets from the line to end it. In between those events was a monumental 9 minute and 58.3 second wrestling match. The Hoos would tie it on two consecutive Paris Clark layups. The Kilah Freelon put the four-point differential back with two of her own layups both of those were from brawls under the basket and offensive rebounds. Mackie Nelson put some more space between the teams with two free-throws but those were erased by Johnson hitting from the stripe for her own two.
Tech’s last points from the floor were put in by Carys Baker from downtown. From that point on, the Lady Hokies were only to score from the free-throw line. UVA tied it at 81 all after a ticky-tac foul was called on Kilah (who fouled out on that whistle) Freelon on a layup by UVA’s Tabitha Amanze and she made the basket for the old fashioned 3-point play.
Paris Clark would hit one of her two awarded free throws to finally put UVA ahead in the game for the first time with 24 seconds on the clock. Then weird happened. Tech took a timeout, moved the ball up and Mackie attempted a trey. That missed, but Mel Daley grabbed the offensive rebound to put the ball back up. That was contested and she grabbed her own board to try again, but the whistle blew. That’s the “weird” part. Somehow in that series, the game clock stopped at 16.3 seconds while play proceeded. The refs had to stop play with Tech in possession, to figure out where to reset the clock (btw, Mel had dropped in that 2nd tip-in attempt but it was after the whistle… natch). The play clock was set to 5.7 seconds.
Tech inbounded the ball and put it in the hands of who best they felt could make the shot, Carleigh. She didn’t really get to take a shot, she was fouled with both teams in bonus status, Carleigh Wenzel stepped to the line for her two fee-throw attempts with 1.7 left on the game clock. Wenzel cooly dropped in both buckets and UVA called a timeout to advance the ball to half-court for some sort of hope for a miracle in the remaining time. Of course, they were trying to get Johnson the ball for the final try, but that didn’t happen Tech got her screened off, and the final shot was an airball that didn’t connect.
Virginia Tech took the Quad 1 (Away) win, and the bacon home to Blacksburg as a regular season finale 82-81.
Significant Statistics
Now, we aren’t going to see Carleigh Wenzel as the first stat mention for this one, we always mention multiple doubles scoring first, and that honor belongs to Mackie Nelson this time. The team, against a Quad 1 opponent, had five players in double figures.
Mackenzie Nelson
Mackie scored 10 points in this game. That total happened on 6 total attempts from the floor. She was one for 2 from three-point range, and 3 of 4 from line. Since it was so close, every point counted dearly, but where Nelson was tearing it up was on assists. Mackie doled out 11 assists in this game, and played crackerjack defense with 6 rebounds, and a steal. Some efforts just need to be highlighted.
Carleigh Wenzel
This one was Carleigh’s game. She put in 29 points, including the final tying and winning buckets from the charity stripe. She was 8-19 from the floor but 9-10 from the line, especially critical in that was her 2 buckets at the end of the game. Wenzel also had 4 assists and 4 rebounds. Carleigh also stood out on defense with a team leading 3 steals and a blocked shot. It was quite a way for her to end the regular season, and sets her up for some notice in the season ending kudos.
Carys Baker
Steady Eddie, that’s Baker. She leads, she plays hard, she is clutch. She plays inside, and for this one she hits from beyond the arc, often. Baker ended the game with 16 points, 12 of which were from three-pointers. She was also 2 of 2 from the line and pushed out an assist. If Baker was Ms. Outside on offense, she was Ms. Inside for defense. Carys had 7 rebounds (2 ORB, 5 DRB) and registered 3 blocked shots. Carleigh and Carys lead this team, and both played at a high level for this critical victory.
Mel Daley
Daley scored 11 points off the bench. It wasn’t in any one spot during the game, but Daley just kept contributing important things with her time on the floor. She was 4 of 10 from the floor and 3 of 4 from the charity stripe. She also pulled down 3 boards. Two of those were critical offensive rebounds. Mel also stole the ball twice on defense.
Kilah Freelon
The inside game was tough for this one. Kilah attracted too much whistle attention for the game, but not before scoring 10 points, and pulling down 5 rebounds. If the refs hadn’t zeroed in on her number, she might have had more time and gotten some bigger stat line entries, but 10 points in 23 minutes is a solid performance.
Leila Wells and Samyha Suffren
Leila scored five off of a deep bucket and one from the floor. Samyha played 12 minutes in this one, and took a grand total of 2 shots, making on. She also pushed out an assist.
Kayl Petersen and Aniya Trent
Neither of them scored in this one, though Kayl nearly hit a three. Petersen pulled down 3 rebounds and stole the ball on defense. Aniya played a surprising 13 minutes off of the bench. She contributed an assist on offense and 2 rebounds and a block on defense.
An Exciting Finish to the Regular Season
It’s post-season tournament time all one and out from here on. The Hokies have that first round bye with the 6th seed in the ACC tournament. They will face either the FSU Seminoles or the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on March 5th the tip-off will be a late 7:30 and the tournament is being played in a new location, Duluth, Georgia.
Of course, Selection Sunday Looms on the Ides of March. (The 15th for all of you non-historic trivia folks).
