Despite allowing a late surge early in the fourth quarter, the NC State women’s basketball team hung on and defeated Virginia 63-52 for its sixth conference win of the season.
Junior guards Dominique Wilson and Miah Spencer both passed 1,000 career points in the Wolfpack’s (14-6 5-2 ACC) win. Wilson had 24 points to lead the way, while Spencer had 18. State shot the ball decently against the Cavaliers (13-8 3-4 ACC), converting on 41.8 of its attempts from the field. The team was not great on the boards, only grabbing 37 rebounds, though it did force 17 turnovers.
“Right now, we’re leaning heavily on those two,” head coach Wes Moore said. “That’s pretty impressive to score over 1,000 points your junior year. You could probably lock me in a gym by myself for four years with nobody guarding me, and I couldn’t score 1,000 points. That says a lot when you can do that.”
The Wolfpack came out of the gate strong, starting with an 8-4 run after senior Carlee Schuhmacher converted a layup off the opening tipoff. However, Virginia was then able to quickly tie it at eight as the Wolfpack went ice cold for a few minutes.
Schuhmacher stopped the skid with another layup for an 8-10 lead with about 2:40 left in the quarter, the first points for State over a span of three minutes. After Virginia hit a three-pointer to go up 11-10 with just under two minutes remaining, three-straight layups put the Pack up 16-11 heading to the room.
Virginia opened up the second quarter with back-to-back threes to take the lead, but a three and layup by Wilson put the Pack back in front. It was pretty much all State after Wilson’s layup, as that sparked a 9-2 run leading to a timeout at the 5:30 mark.
The Wolfpack played lockdown defense for pretty much the entire quarter, as two Virginia free throws at the 2:17 mark were the first points the team allowed in nearly five minutes of play. The Wolfpack headed to halftime up 30-21, getting 13 first-half points from Wilson to lead the team.
The team roared out on a 13-8 run over the first five minutes of the third quarter, getting seven points from Wilson and two apiece from Spencer, Schuhmacher and junior guard Ashley Williams. The rest of the quarter was a little more even, but the Wolfpack headed to the fourth quarter up 48-37.
The Cavaliers awakened to start the final quarter, opening with an 8-0 run and putting NC State on its heels to cut the Wolfpack deficit to three.
Wilson responded with yet another layup to stop the bleeding. However, the Cavaliers answered with a quick jump shot to bring themselves back within three, continuing to show they would not go quietly. Following an offensive foul called against Virginia, Spencer was fouled and made two free throws to bring the lead back to five, but Virginia again answered with a jumper from just inside the arc to once again cut the lead to three.
Spencer and junior forward Jennifer Mathurin responded with huge back-to-back layups to give the Pack a seven-point lead with under three minutes to play, and Wilson then sank two free throws to make it a nine-point lead with 2:13 remaining. With 57 seconds to go, Virginia sent Spencer to the line, and she missed the first and made the second to put the Pack up 10 and seal the deal, and the final score ended up at 63-52.
“They made a run at us, and after what happened in our last home game, it would have been easy for us to panic,” Moore said. “I’m really proud of the way our kids just kept grinding, kept working. It’s good to get it in the win column, and hopefully we can get a little momentum built up for this weekend.”
The Wolfpack returns to action Sunday against in-state rival UNC-Chapel Hill at Broughton High School.
