BRIDGEWATER, Va. – The Washington and Lee women's basketball team was unable to shake a sluggish start in a 52-45 road loss at Bridgewater on Wednesday night, splitting the regular season series with the Eagles.
Both teams struggled out of the gates, as the score favored the Eagles (14-5, 9-4 ODAC) just 6-4 with 1:30 to play in the opening frame. BC went on to score six of the final eight points to take a 12-6 advantage into the second, when the Generals (15-6, 12-2 ODAC) opened the quarter by scoring the first five points and holding Bridgewater scoreless for the first three and a half minutes.
The two teams traded scores for the next three minutes, leaving the Generals down two points with three and a half minutes to play in the half following a three-point shot made by junior
Hanna Malik (Raleigh, N.C. / Athens Drive). The Eagles then posted the longest scoring run of the game for either team, scoring 13 straight points and spanning the run into the second half to take a 31-16 lead.
W&L put together short scoring spurts of five points and six points during the third, but a 7-0 run by the Eagles sandwiched in between helped BC take a 42-30 advantage into the fourth.
The Generals showed fight to begin the final period with an 8-2 run to cut the BC lead in half with just under seven minutes to play, with a pair of buckets coming from first-year
Quinn McGuinness (Columbia, N.J. / North Warren Regional). W&L came as close as five points for the remainder of the contest, after a triple from first-year
Sofia Feigelson (Millbrook, N.Y. / Millbrook School) with 3:13 left, but the Eagles limited the Blue and White to just 1-for-3 shooting and no free throw attempts from that point on to claim the win.
Senior
Kathryn Vandiver (Charlotte, N.C. / Charlotte Latin School) led the Generals' offense with 10 points on 3-of-4 shooting from the field, while grabbing six rebound and blocking four shots. First-year
Mary Schleusner (Charlotte, N.C. / Charlotte Latin School) finished with nine points and 21 rebounds. It is her second game this season with at least that many boards, after a program-record 23 last month against Roanoke. Schleusner now owns two of the four 20-rebound games in the history of W&L women's basketball, and she has done so in a span of just 21 days.
Malik finished with eight points and three rebounds, and she now needs just two more three-point shots to fall in order to pass Kari Ann Pfannenstein '12 for fourth place on the program's career leaderboard. McGuinness tallied seven points and junior
Grace O'Connor (Hillsborough, N.J. / Hillsborough) finished with six rebounds and seven assists, her fourth game in the last six in which she dished out at least six dimes.
The Eagles were led on offense by Riley Corcoran and Erika Nettles, who both scored 11 points. Corcoran shot 5-of-8 from the field and Nettles connected on 4-of-9 attempts, to go along with seven rebounds. Jaden Alsberry pulled down a team-high 11 rebounds and Jay Garcia finished the night with eight points and nine boards.
Bridgewater shot 34.4 percent (21-61) overall in the game, with a mark of 50 percent (7-14) in the second quarter. The Eagles limited W&L to 23.2 percent (16-69) shooting from the floor, and they also held advantages over the Blue and White in points off turnovers (9-6), bench points (31-16) and points in the paint (22-20).
Four games remain in the regular season for the Generals, three of which will be played on their home court. They will take on Eastern Mennonite at home in their next contest, a 7:00 pm tip-off on Wednesday evening.
