Once again the game came down to the final minutes for William and Mary. Once again the Tribe had a chance to get themselves over the proverbial hump. Once again they failed to do so.
The storylines are becoming frustratingly predictable for the College (11-13, 4-9 CAA) as they fell 63-60 to Towson Sunday at Kaplan Arena.
Sophomore guard Katherine DeHenzel had a chance to tie the game on a three-pointer from the left wing at the buzzer, but the shot sailed wide. Afterward, Head Coach Debbie Taylor would say DeHenzel’s shot was the one she wanted. It was the play earlier that had her upset.
“I was happy with her shot, I was unhappy about the play before that when we didn’t execute,” Taylor said. “We set a play up and we had a player decide to do what she wanted to do and it was a total melt down.”
The Tribe opened the game on a 19-10 run, with sophomore guard Taysha Pye scoring nine of her game-high 25 points in the first nine minutes of the ball game. Towson would respond by pounding the College on the offensive glass.
The Tribe quickly fell behind in the second half, trailing 60-49 with five minutes left to play. But a pair of threes from DeHenzel and Pye and a layup from senior forward Tiffany Benson would make it a two point game with 1:36 remaining.
After forcing a Towson turnover, Taylor called timeout with 39 seconds remaining to set up what she hoped would be a final play.
“We were trying to run a wing isolation for Taysha because she was having a hard time getting off the top when we ran the down screen and attack to the basket. She didn’t get that so we were going to run one where Janine [Aldridge] comes off the screens and gets open like she had been doing all night, reverse the ball to the high post and swing it to her on the wing,” Taylor said. “But it didn’t get Janine where she needed to be and they picked up their defense and denied the pass. It was a total meltdown, which we’ve had a couple times.”
Towson deflected the rebound out of bounds, giving the Tribe another possession with seven seconds on the shot clock. The inbound pass went to Pye, who was fouled on a layup attempt. The sophomore hit one of two free throws to cut Towson’s lead to one.
Towson’s Baker-Brice was fouled on the other end and hit both her free throws, forcing DeHenzel to attempt a three-pointer at the buzzer.
“I thought the first 10s minutes and the last five minutes, we played hard,” Taylor said. “And just somewhere in the middle, we kind of floundered.”
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