December 28, 2008

BALANCED RAMS BLAST BY LONGWOOD, 79-49
Four players finish with 10 points in eighth straight home win
Box Score

RICHMOND, Va. – The Virginia Commonwealth University women’s basketball team are obviously still in the holiday spirit as the Rams spread the ball around and used a balanced scoring attack to pound the Lancers of Longwood University, 79-49, on Sunday afternoon at the Alltel Pavilion at the Stuart C. Siegel Center.

“It’s tough to come out of a Christmas break, but our team did a great job of coming out with a focus and an energy right from the start,” Head Coach Beth Cunningham said. “Defensively, we really set the tone and used that to ignite our offense where a lot of different kids knocked down shots.”

It marks the fifth straight overall and eighth straight home victory as the Rams improve to 9-2 on the year, while Longwood drops to 4-7.

Kita Waller (Gainesville, Ga.), Radoslava Bachvarova (Varna, Bulgaria), La’Tavia Rorie (Charlotte, N.C.) and Jessica Taylor (Woodbridge, Va.) all finished with 10 points to lead the offensive attack that shot close to 45% on the afternoon.

A lay-up from senior Quanitra Hollingsworth (Chesapeake, Va.) capped off an 11-4 start for the Rams with 14:38 showing on the first half clock.

Baskets by Emma Zieverink and Anna Steg got the Lancers within three at 11-8 with 13:34 left before halftime.

It was all Black and Gold from there.

Seven points from Taylor, six from D’Andra Moss (Atlanta, Ga.) and five from Rorie led a 28-4 run to send the Rams into the intermission with a stifling 39-12 advantage.

The second half was much of the same as Bachvarova and Hollingsworth teamed up for 11 quick points to give VCU their biggest lead at 42, 68-26, with under 10 minutes remaining in the contest.

Longwood would cut into the lead late with Krystal Garrison and Sierra Fletcher knocking down late three-pointers to get the Lancers with 30, but that would be it as the Rams claimed the 79-49 victory.

11 different players tallied points in the contest with eight of them chipping in six ore more in the lop-sided win.

“Our balanced attack is really going to be one of our strengths headed into the conference schedule,” Waller said. “It really makes it tough for teams to defend us if when we have so many different players that can score.”

“We are the type of team that is going to have a lot of games like we today with the balanced scoring,” Cunningham said. “We might have certain games where one or two players get hot, but we know that every game we have numerous kids that can step us and give us plenty of scoring options.”

Garrison led all scorers with 13 points, while Fletcher finished with 12 for the Lancers.

Joining the quartet of 10-points scorers was Hollingsworth with nine points and eight rebounds in only 19 minutes and freshman Jennifer Lane (Wichita, Kan.) (right) with seven points and four assists.

The defense was the key to the Black and Gold’s victory forcing 22 turnovers compared to just 10 for VCU, while holding the Lancers to just 37.8% from the field and 21.7% in the first half.

VCU will be back in action on Tuesday night as they host the Eagles of American University in a 7 p.m. tip-off at the Alltel Pavilion at the Stuart C. Siegel Center.