VCU Rams

Feb. 22, 2009

FAST AND FURIOUS RALLY PROPELS RAMS PAST HOFSTRA
Down 12, VCU ends up winning by 12

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. – It’s on. The Virginia Commonwealth University women’s basketball team and the Drexel Dragons will do battle for first place in the Colonial Athletic Association on Thursday in Philadelphia.

Getting to that point with big winning streaks intact proved to be quite an adventure for both teams. Drexel needed double overtime to beat Northeastern on Sunday. The Rams? All VCU did was follow up one of its worst halves of the season with one of its best halves in a 55-43 victory over Hofstra at the Mack Sports Complex.

“That second half,” VCU Coach Beth Cunningham said, “was awesome.”

VCU improved to 13-2 in the CAA and 23-4 overall with its eighth straight victory. Drexel is also 13-2 in the league and has an 18-8 overall mark. The Dragons have won 10 straight.

But before they could think about Drexel, the Rams had to find a way to rally from a 12-point hole against the Pride (7-8, 15-11). VCU shot just 19.4 percent in the first half, missing 25 of its 31 shots and falling behind 25-16 at the break. The deficit became 12 when Natty Fripp hit a 3-pointer for the first bucket of the second half.

The Rams rallied quickly and furiously, using a zone trap to frustrate Hofstra and capitalizing when it did get a turnover. VCU had six field goals – the same number it had in the first half – in the first 4:30 of the second.

Senior Radoslava Bachvarova (Varna, Bulgaria) scored 13 of her game-high 17 points in the second half. She also had seven rebounds. Senior Quanitra Hollingsworth (Chesapeake, Va.) recorded the 50th “double-double” of her career with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Freshman Jennifer Lane (Wichita, Kan.) scored 12 points, 10 of them in the second half. Lane was 6-6 from the free-throw line.

“We talked about halftime, we had to forget about whatever happened in the first half and come out a new team in the second,” Cunningham said. “I think that’s exactly what happened. Our intensity, our defensive pressure really got us going. For whatever reason, I feel like we were a little flat in the first half. They did a nice job in their zone.

“We wanted to pick the tempo up in all facets of the game. We needed to get more physical on the boards. This is really a character win. The kids showed a lot of toughness. It’s the second game in a row where we’ve really had to grind it out to give ourselves another opportunity to get a big win.”

Looking ahead to Thursday was a concern. Cunningham has encouraged her team to stay “in the moment,” as she calls it but she also understands human nature doesn’t always make that easy to do.

“We knew with one stop at a time, we could come back,” Bachvarova said. “It’s hard (not to think ahead). We’re at the top and we know every team is trying to beat us, so that’s hard.”

One of the more impressive aspects of the Rams’ second-half rally was they did it without fouling. VCU had no personal fouls for the first 11 minutes of the second half. The Rams had just three personal fouls in the half and only 10 for the game.

VCU held a 42-35 advantage on the boards. Junior Kita Waller (Gainesville, Ga.) had nine boards to go with her seven points.

“We were able to chip away at that lead, We were able to rattle them a little bit while gaining some confidence ourselves. Outstanding second half, maybe as good a 20 minutes as we’ve played,” Cunningham said.