SALEM, Va. – The top-seeded Washington and Lee women's basketball team broke two program records and tied another in an 85-69 win over eighth-seeded Ferrum in the quarterfinals of the ODAC Tournament on Thursday.
The Generals improve to 20-6 overall this season with the win, which ties the 2021-22 team's program record for wins in a season. With the loss, the Panthers close their season at 12-15 overall.
The first quarter was highlighted by first-year
Elka Prechel (Corvallis, Ore. / Corvallis) who, on her first shot attempt of the game, connected from long range to break the program's single-season three-point field goal record (76). Prechel's three gave the Generals an early 8-4 lead, but the Panthers fought hard in the opening quarter as they gained the lead on four separate occasions, with the last being 20-18 with 34 seconds left.
The Generals went on to hold the Panthers off the board for the next 4:05 of play while scoring 13 straight points to gain a 31-20 advantage in the second quarter, before heading into the halftime break ahead by a 45-31 margin. First-year
Sarah Zimmerman (Cincinnati, Ohio / Cincinnati Country Day) led all scorers in the first half with nine points.
The second half favored the Generals by a score of 40-38, with both teams scoring 23 points in the fourth quarter. A pair of free throws from DeMeisha Canada with 7:23 left in the third cut the Generals' lead to 14 points, but the Panthers were unable to come within 16 points over the final 7:04. W&L's largest lead reached 22 points (80-58) on a triple by first-year
Quinn McGuinness (Columbia, N.J. / North Warren Regional) with 3:06 left in the game.
Senior
Kathryn Vandiver (Charlotte, N.C. / Charlotte Latin School) led the W&L offense with 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the floor to go along with 11 rebounds and three blocks. The game marked Vandiver's second double-double of the season. Schleusner finished with 13 points, eight boards, three steals and three blocks, and moved up a pair of leaderboards. Her eight rebounds moved her into third place on the single-season rebounds list (291), while her three blocks tied her with Katy Wilson '13 for seventh on the career blocks list.
Zimmerman logged 11 points and a team- and season-high six assists, and Prechel added a second three-point make in the game to finish with 77 this season.
W&L completed the game with a 38-24 advantage in the rebound battle, which broke the program record for most total rebounds in a season (1,315). The previous record of 1,310 was set during the 2006-07 campaign.
Martin tallied a game-high 17 points and added four rebounds, and Canada scored 14 points with six rebounds. Allyson Cassell rounded out the group of three Panthers to score in double figures, as she contributed 11 points.
The Generals finished the game with a field goal percentage of 52.6 (30-57), and reached the 60-percent mark in the first (9-15) and fourth (7-11) quarters. They also connected on 17-of-20 (.850) foul shots and held positive margins in points in the paint (44-34), second-chance points (14-5), fastbreak points (14-4) and bench points (32-16).
With the win, W&L advances to the ODAC Semifinals, which will be played on Friday at 1:00 pm at the Salem Civic Center. The Generals will take on the winner of the Guilford/Randolph quarterfinal game.
