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RAMS, TAYLOR TOPPLE ALBANY 67-53 ALBANY, N.Y. – Sophomore Jessica Taylor gave the Virginia Commonwealth University women’s basketball team a jump start in the second half to help the Rams put away the Great Danes of Albany 67-53 on Saturday afternoon at Albany’s SEFCU Arena. Taylor, from Woodbridge, Va., scored a career-high 11 points, all in the second half. She also had four steals and two rebounds. She was 5-7 from the field, 5-6 in the second half. Taylor’s previous high was seven points, which she’d done twice. She matched her career high in steals. VCU improved to 4-1. Albany fell to 0-6. The Rams led the Great Danes by just eight when Taylor scored her first basket of the game with 12:36 to play. She added seven more over the next 3:30. When her scoring explosion stopped, VCU had extended its lead to 21 points. “Jessica had a great second half,” VCU Coach Beth Cunningham said. “It started on the defensive end and she was able to convert on the offensive end and get us going a little bit. She really did a nice job when we needed it.” VCU also got a dominating performance from 6-5 senior center Quanitra Hollingsworth (Chesapeake, Va.). She had 18 points and 15 rebounds, both game highs. It marked the 39th time during her career that Hollingsworth reached double figures in those two categories. She helped lead VCU to a 43-31 rebounding advantage. Hollingsworth had five offensive rebounds, as did junior La’Tavia Rorie (Charlotte, N.C.). Rorie contributed 11 points and seven total rebounds. Junior Kita Waller (Gainesville, Ga.) also had 11 rebounds to go with five rebounds and two steals. VCU led only 28-22 at the half. Though the Rams held the Great Danes to just one 2-point field goal in the first 14 minutes of the second half (Albany had four 3-pointers in that stretch), VCU couldn’t pull away until Taylor started her stealing and scoring stretch. “I think we battled through it today,” Cunningham said. “I wasn’t necessarily pleased with how we played. I thought in spurts we played well but I didn’t think we had the consistency we really needed to have. “I thought ‘Q’ came out really ready to go. Jessica had the great second half, really got us going. But it was sort of a sloppy game. I thought we had a lapse of focus at times. There’s a lot that we can learn from it, another great game for us to just try and continue to get better and learn from the good and the bad.” Hollingsworth “seemed to be about the only thing that was working, especially in the first half,” Cunningham said. “We were able to isolate her and get her some one-on-one. In the second half, we did a good job getting after it defensively at times and converting it into offense. Jessica brought a lot of energy and a lot of intensity on the defensive end of the floor. At that point, we really needed it. It kind of broke their back when JT went on that little run of her own.” VCU returns to action Wednesday, Dec. 3 when it faces cross-town rival University of Richmond at 7 p.m. at UR’s Robins Center.
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