Virginia stays perfect with 83-54 victory at William & Mary

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Posted on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022, 12:05 am

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Courtesy UVA Media Relations

Photo: UVA Athletics

The Virginia women’s basketball team picked up an 83-54 victory at William & Mary on Wednesday at Kaplan Arena in Williamsburg.

Virginia (11-0, 1-0 ACC) went on a 14-2 run in the second quarter to build up a 46-25 halftime lead. The Cavaliers opened the fourth quarter on another 14-2 run. Mir McLean logged a double-double in the first half, finishing the game with 22 points and a career-high 17 rebounds. Sam Brunelle scored 13 points. Riley Casey led the Tribe with 13 points.

This is the Cavaliers’ first 11-0 start to a season since 1991 and their first 11-game win streak since 1995.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Brunelle opened the game with a 3-pointer, scoring 11 points in the first five minutes of the contest to give UVA a 15-10 lead. The Cavaliers took a 19-12 lead into the second period. McLean scored four-straight points to build up a 25-16 lead. Another 4-0 McLean run followed by a Valladay layup made it 31-18 with 5:13 remaining in the half. A fastbreak layup from Cady Pauley capped the 14-2 run and made it 39-20 with 2:44 left in the quarter. Virginia went into the break with a 46-25 lead.

McLean scored 14 points in the second quarter and had 18 with 13 rebounds in the first half.

William & Mary (4-4, 0-0 CAA) went on a 6-0 run early in the third quarter, with a jumper from Kaydan Lawson keeping the Tribe from extending it. After starting the game 0 of 11 from 3-point range, the Tribe hit its first three with 4:10 remaining, but Lawson answered with a trey for the Cavaliers on the opposite end to push the lead back to 57-36. Alexia Smith hit a floater at the buzzer to give UVA a 65-42 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

The Cavaliers opened the final quarter on a 14-2 run, including six-straight points from Taylor Valladay, to build up a 79-44 lead. The Tribe scored six straight points to cut the deficit to 29, but a jumper from Smith pushed the advantage back to 81-50 with 3:38 remaining. Alexa Mikeska hit a jumper with seven seconds remaining to cut the difference to 29 points.

CAVALIER NOTES

  • Virginia shot 49.3 percent (34 of 69) while William & Mary shot 34.0 percent (18 of 53)
  • Virginia held a 51-25 edge in rebounds
  • William & Mary only had three second-chance points and one fast-break basket
  • Taylor Valladay finished with 12 points, her fifth double-digit scoring game of the year
  • This was Mir McLean’s fifth double-double of the season and seventh of her career
  • This was McLean’s second career 20-point game
  • McLean was 7 of 8 from the field and 8 of 11 from the free-throw line
  • Sam Brunelle went 4 of 4 (3 of 3 from 3-point range) in the first quarter
  • This was the Cavaliers’ second-straight game against a CAA opponent after topping UNCW 78-36 on Sunday

FROM HEAD COACH AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON

“That was a fun one. I was just happy to see everybody contribute. Everybody got a chance to play. Of course there’s never a perfect game and there’s some things we have to work on, on both sides of the ball, but I thought, for the most part, we played a very solid game and had multiple people contribute.

“We played aggressive. A lot of teams are starting to zone us and we’re just learning how to attack the zone better with different looks and sharing the ball. So I think we’re getting better through this. I think in the first eight or so games, all we saw was man, and now we’re seeing a lot of zone so we’re going to have to be able to score against both moving them forward. So I think this was a great test.”

ON THE HORIZON

This will be the Cavaliers’ final game before taking a 10-day exam break. They will return to action on Sunday, Dec. 18, hosting Morgan State at 2 p.m. at John Paul Jones Arena.