LEXINGTON, VA--The Roanoke College women's basketball team jumped out to a 43-32 halftime lead and went on to claim a 75-58 victory over Washington & Lee University on Tuesday evening in Lexington, VA. The Maroons improve to 6-5 on the season and 3-4 in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. The win was Roanoke's fourth straight and 24th in 24 all-time meetings with the Generals. Washington & Lee falls to 4-7 on the year and 3-5 in the conference.
The Generals opened the game's scoring with a layup just four seconds into the contest. The Maroons, however, scored four consecutive points, on
Lindsay Reynolds and
Veronica Kelly layups. After W&L evened things up at four, the Maroons used a 16-5 run to take a 20-9 lead. Five of Roanoke's eight field goals in that run came in the paint, with the Maroons using screens to get open underneath. Sophomore
Erin Hanson had eight points in the run and
Ashley Nesbit four.
Brittany Johnson assisted on Roanoke's first two field goals of the run, while Kelly assisted on the third and fourth buckets.
After the Generals trimmed the Maroon lead to just eight points, 21-13, with 10:31 left in the first half, the Maroons used a 9-2 streak to get their lead out to 15 points, 30-15. Johnson scored four more points in the run and Kelly added two more assists. The Maroon lead would not get any higher than 15 points in the first half and on a Jessica Hunsinger bucket with 15 seconds left in the half was cut to just nine, 41-32. The Maroons quickly took the ball out of bounds off the make, allowing Nesbit to roll in a 15-foot jumper from the corner at the buzzer to give RC the 43-32 lead at the break.
The Maroons shot 56 percent from the field in the first half, making 18 of their 32 attempts from the field. The Maroons made 17 of their 25 two-point attempts in the first half. Meanwhile, the RC defense held the Generals to just 35 percent from the field, 12-for-34.
Roanoke's hot shooting from the field carried over into the second half, with the visiting team making five of their first 10 shots from the field, two of which came from three-point range. After Hanson scored on a layup, Reynolds drained a three from the corner to give RC a 48-32 lead. W&L made a free throw, but Hanson answered with a three from the wing to give the Maroons their largest lead to that point, 51-33. Washington & Lee could get no closer than 12 points the rest of the way, that at 55-43 with 14:05 to go. Twice the Maroon lead hit the highest point of 19 points.
Three Maroons finished the game in double-figures in the scoring column. Hanson and Kelly led the way with 14 points, while
Cindy McGraw added 13. Hanson finished the day with her third double-double in the past four games, leading all Maroons with 12 rebounds. Kelly finished very close to recording the first triple-double in team history, grabbing nine boards and adding a career-best eight assists. She also added a team-best four steals. Reynolds had four assists in the game to go along with nine points. As a team the Maroons had just 10 turnovers, four in the second half.
The Maroons look to even their record in the ODAC on Thursday as they host the Quakers of Guilford College at 7:00pm in the Bast Center. The team will then host Randolph-Macon Woman's College at 12:00pm on Saturday afternoon.
Roanoke vs. Washington & Lee Box Score
