McLean suffers leg injury as Cavaliers fall at No. 10 NC State, 87-62

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

The Virginia women’s basketball team suffered an 87-62 loss at No. 10 NC State on Sunday at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh.

NC State (13-3, 3-2 ACC) led 41-30 at the half and outscored the Cavaliers 46-32 in the second half. It was Virginia’s second-straight loss against a top-10 team after falling at No. 9 Virginia Tech on Thursday night.

The Cavaliers (13-3, 2-3) had three players finish the game in double figures. Camryn Taylor led all scorers with a 16-point performance. Taylor Valladay scored 13 and Sam Brunelle 12. Mir McLean grabbed 11 rebounds. NC State had five players finish in double figures with Jada Boyd scoring 13.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Taylor scored eight of Virginia’s first 12 points in a battle down low. In the first quarter, the Cavaliers scored 10 of their first 12 points in the paint while NC State scored 16 of its first 18 there. The game kept a two-point margin until a jumper from Boyd with 53 seconds left in the first gave the Wolfpack a five-point advantage, 20-15.

The Wolfpack scored the first five points of the second period to build up a 25-15 lead. A jumper from Brunelle followed by a three-pointer from Taylor and a layup from Alexia Smith gave UVA a 7-0 run in a 1:09 span to pull within three, 27-24, but a three-pointer from the Wolfpack ended the run. A layup from Smith with 6:08 left in the period would be the last points for the Cavaliers until a three-pointer from Brunelle with 49 seconds left in the half. Virginia’s 0-for-10 shooting dry spell allowed NC State to build up a 39-26 lead.

The Cavaliers cut the deficit back to single digits on a Brunelle free throw with 19 seconds remaining, but the Wolfpack got a turnover in the final moments of the first half, with Saniya Rivers scoring a fastbreak layup with 0.7 seconds remaining to send the home team into the break with a 41-30 lead.

McLean scored the first three points of the third quarter to narrow the gap to single digits, 41-33, but NC State responded with seven points in a 53-second span to go ahead 48-33. McLean left the game with 4:18 remaining in the third quarter after going down on the court with an injury. The Wolfpack built up an 18-point lead, but three-pointers from Valladay and Brunelle chipped away at the deficit with the Cavaliers trailing 62-49 with 2:24 left in the period. Virginia trailed 68-51 heading into the final quarter.

NC State opened up the final quarter on an 8-2 run to build up a 76-53 lead leading up to a 25-point advantage by the end of the quarter.

GAME NOTES

• Virginia shot 32.9 percent (25 of 76). NC State shot 57.4 percent (31 of 54)
• NC State shot 66.7 percent (8 of 12) in the third quarter and 63.6 percent (7 of 11) in the third quarter
• NC State held a 45-38 edge in rebounding
• NC State scored 40 points in the paint. Virginia had 28
• NC State blocked 12 Virginia shots
• Camryn Taylor, Sam Brunelle and Taylor Valladay all scored in double figures by the end of the third quarter

FROM HEAD COACH AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON
“Obviously, NC State played well. We’re on the road and playing a top-10 team, but I thought we continued to fight and didn’t seem too far gone, even early in the third, but the game is secondary, honestly to what we just witnessed with somebody that’s in our family [being injured] and just praying that she’s okay. I think when Mir went down, that was a big blow and our players having to witness that, I’m just really proud of them for continuing to fight after that. As far as the game, we didn’t really execute everything that we thought we were going to, they took us out of some things. And we didn’t really defend at the level we should, so we just have to continue to get better.”

ON THE HORIZON
Virginia returns home to host No. 22 North Carolina on Thursday at 7 p.m. (RSN/ACCNX), the first of three-straight home games for the Cavaliers.