William and Mary women’s basketball (11-16, 8-8 CAA) played its final home games of the season over the weekend, defeating Northeastern (2-23, 1-15 CAA) 71-51 before falling 54-34 to Hofstra (12-15, 7-9 CAA). The Tribe lost five of its last six contests and dropped into a three-way tie for sixth in the Coastal Athletic Association standings. The Green and Gold can no longer finish in the league’s top four, meaning they are eliminated from receiving a double-bye in the conference tournament.
Friday, Feb. 28, the Tribe cruised past Northeastern at Kaplan Arena, never trailing during a dominant victory over the last place Huskies. Early on, William and Mary was carried by its backcourt duo of senior guard Bella Nascimento and sophomore guard Cassidy Geddes, who head coach Erin Dickerson Davis implored to be more consistent after a Feb. 21 loss to North Carolina A&T (17-10, 13-3 CAA) in which the pair combined to make just six of 26 field goal attempts.Â
Out of the gate, Nascimento and Geddes proved they took their coach’s words to heart, making eight of their first ten field goal attempts and staking the Green and Gold to a 25-13 lead at the end of the first quarter.
“I’m very proud of how our team attacked this game,” Dickerson Davis said. “The last time we played Northeastern, I think that we didn’t come in with the aggression that we needed to be successful. We ended up pulling it out, but I mean literally at the very end, as opposed to today, where I think we were in attack mode from the very jump.”
Geddes echoed a similar sentiment, highlighting the team’s determination.
“We were really trying to focus on — even in warm-ups — coming out with the right energy, the right mindset,” Geddes said. “So that led us straight into the game, being able to start strong. We started out aggressive in our press and we know that really gets us going for the rest of the game.”
Behind the efforts of freshman center Alyssa Staten, the Huskies prevented the Tribe from extending its lead during the second quarter and entered the half trailing 40-26. On the other side of the break, seven third-quarter points from freshman center Natalie Fox gave the Green and Gold a spark and extended the hosts’ lead to 55-34.
Fox finished the night with a career-high 11 points along with five rebounds.
“I feel like we did a really good job of screening and rolling and catching me when I was open on the roll,” Fox said. “A lot of times, I feel like it was just a quick screen and roll, and it was an easy basket, which is something we actually have been working on a lot in practice. So it’s nice to see it translate to the game.”
The Tribe smothered its opponents during the third quarter, holding them to 20% field goal shooting and forcing seven Husky turnovers. Although Northeastern found more offensive success in the subsequent quarter, a late six point burst from senior forward Anahi-Lee Cauley put the cherry on top of the Green and Gold’s lopsided victory.
Dickerson Davis lauded the performances of Fox and Geddes, the latter of whom scored 17 points on 50% three-point shooting.
“Both of them have really just locked into what we need them to do,” Dickerson Davis said. “Because of that — I knew it when we recruited them, and I know that the same today — they’re going to have an amazing career here. I just hope now they help put on for the seniors and my two juniors that are graduating on Sunday. They are a big piece of what we do, and those are the shoes that these two plus some of our other young players will be filling.”
Sunday, March 2, the Tribe hosted its Senior Day against Hofstra, honoring junior guard Alexa Mikeska, junior forward Kayla Rolph, graduate student center Kayla Beckwith, graduate student forward Rebekah Frisby-Smith, Nascimento and Cauley. Mikeska got the scoring started for the Green and Gold, and her four early points would keep the Tribe competitive during a defense-oriented first quarter. When the first ten minutes concluded, William and Mary was trailing 8-7.
The Tribe would again score eight points during the second quarter, but its opponents did not follow suit. Hofstra blew the game open with a 19 point frame that saw the visitors shoot 52.9% from the floor and outrebound the hosts 15-7.
The next two periods were similar stories: the Pride slowly increased its advantage while the Tribe failed to find any offensive rhythm. A brief offensive eruption from Cauley and Frisby-Smith during the early minutes of the third quarter closed the gap to 28-24, but William and Mary soon fell behind again for good.
That night, the Green and Gold scored 34 points and made only 14 of its 59 field goal attempts, good for 23.7%. Only four times since the turn of the century had the Tribe previously scored so few points in a single game; only six times since the turn of the century had the Tribe previously made such a low percentage of its field goals in a single game.
Nascimento scored four points while making just two of her 19 field goal attempts. Rolph, Geddes and Cauley were only marginally more efficient, combining to shoot 26.9% from the floor. As a team, the Green and Gold were outrebounded 45-33 and saw no individual player break the double digit scoring threshold.
The Tribe will return to the court Thursday, March 6 to take on league-leading NC A&T at Corbett Sports Center in Greensboro, N.C. The Green and Gold will then travel to the John W. Pope Jr. Convocation Center in Buies Creek, N.C. to face off against Campbell Saturday, March 8.
