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 From the opening tip of the season to when the final buzzer sounded, the Rams showed the characteristic of being more of a family than a basketball team. Those characteristics shined bright once again on Saturday afternoon when the Black & Gold mounted a furious rally late in the second half, but fell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, 57-51, to the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University. In the first ever NCAA Tournament appearance for the Rams, VCU battled the seventh-seeded Scarlet Knights all game long and came up just a few baskets short of pulling the upset. ”This is a season that all these kids will remember,” Head Coach Beth Cunningham said. “We took VCU women’s basketball to a place it had never been before and showed what our program is all about on the biggest stages. I’m so proud of having the chance to coach these kids.” After the Scarlet Knights ran out to a 8-1 advantage, the senior tandem of Radoslava Bachvarova (Varna, Bulgaria) and Quanitra Hollingsworth (Chesapeake, Va.) ignited the Rams offense. An old-fashioned three-point play from Hollingsworth capped off a 16-5 run that gave VCU a 17-13 advantage with 8:27 to play in the first half. First-Team All-Big EAST performer Epiphanny Prince responded with a three-pointer and two nice assists to regain the lead at 21-18 in favor of the Scarlet Knights. Once again, the Black & Gold would answer with a pull-up jumper from Bachvarova and an old-fashioned three-point play from junior La’Tavia Rorie (Charlotte, N.C.) that gave VCU a 23-21 lead with just under three minutes left in the first half. Prince once again turned on the jets with a fastbreak assist on a Khadijah Rushdan lay-up and two from the charity stripe to send Rutgers into the locker room with a 25-23 advantage.  Hollingsworth dropped in a nice layup from freshman Jennifer Lane (Wichita, Kan.) to start the second half and even the score at 25-25.Prince and Kia Vaughn would take over from there with the junior-senior duo combining for 22 of the next 30 Rutgers’ points as the Scarlet Knights started to pull away with a 30-12 run and a 55-37 advantage with just over six minutes to play. ”She [Prince] showed why she is considered one of the top guards in the country today,” Cunningham said. “I thought Jennifer Lane did a great job in the first half of defending such a potent offensive threat, but you can only hold a talent like that down for so long.” Like they have all year long, VCU showed its toughness with a 12-0 run capped off by a jumper from beyond the arc from Bachvarova to get the Black & Gold within six at 55-49 with just under two minutes left. Rutgers would go 2-of-9 from the charity stripe down the stretch enabling the Rams to have a chance, but nothing would fall as the valiant effort came up just short. ”I can’t say enough about the toughness our kids showed today,” Cunningham said. “It was a game of runs and we countered their second half run with a run of our own, but the shots that we really needed at the end there just didn’t fall.” In their final appearances in a VCU uniform, Bachvarova and Hollingsworth each finished with 16 points apiece to lead the Rams. Hollingsworth added 11 rebounds for her eight double-double in the past nine games, 18th of the year and 55th of her career. She finishes her career with 1,604 points (second all-time) and 1,114 rebounds (first all-time). ”This isn’t the last that you will see of VCU women’s basketball,” Hollingsworth said. “We’ve come a long way since I came here five years ago and I believe that you will see this program back here again and they will win on this stage.” Bachvarova wraps up her two-year stay with the Rams with 628 points and 73 three-pointers. ”When I came here our goal was to take this program somewhere it had never been,” Bachvarova said. “We did that this year and I believe that this program will continue to do it in the future.” Prince tallied a game-high 26 points on 9-of-20 shooting, while also collecting 11 rebounds. Vaughn added 13 points and six rebounds for the Scarlet Knights. |
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