School took a break for Presidents’ Day weekend, but the GW women’s basketball team did not.
The No. 9 (AP, ESPN/USA Today) Colonials beat Charlotte and St. Louis to improve to 23-2 on the season and 12-0 in the Atlantic 10.
The 64-59 win over Charlotte Thursday broke the 49ers’ 22-game home winning streak. The Colonials followed up the win with a 64-47 win over St. Louis Sunday.
“We did a good job, we played really well in the second half,” coach Joe McKeown said of Sunday’s game. “We got up by 20 and just finished it off. But it wasn’t pretty. St. Louis is one of the up and coming teams in the conference. They played really hard. It was a good weekend for us, to win two on the road.”
Against the Billikens, turnovers appeared to be the difference. The Colonials forced St. Louis to give up the ball 29 times, a season high for the Billikens. GW had 17 turnovers.
Thanks to GW’s 31-percent shooting in the first half, tying a season-low, St. Louis (11-15, 3-9 A-10) kept the game within single digits in the first period before the Colonials broke away in the second half. A 10-0 run midway through the second half put the Colonials up 16.
“It was a good team effort. Our best really contributed,” McKeown said.
Leading the GW scoring attack were juniors Kim Beck and Sarah-Jo Lawrence, who had 16 points each. Sophomore Jessica Adair had her second-straight double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Senior Kenan Cole, who was questionable for Sunday’s game after leaving in the first half of the Charlotte contest with an ankle injury, started the game but scored just seven points in 29 minutes. McKeown said that Cole’s injury was not a factor in her performance and that she should be fine for the rest of the season.
McKeown said that junior Whitney Allen guarded St. Louis senior Tyler McIlwraith, who averages 15.1 points per game as well as possible, holding the team’s only senior starter to just three points. Only one Billiken, freshman Theresa Lisch, reached double digits with 14 points.
Thursday, the Colonials defeated Charlotte at Halton Arena, where no team had won since December 2005. The 49ers (17-10, 8-4 A-10) kept the game close and even took the lead late in the second half before GW prevailed in the final few minutes. Lawrence led the Colonials’ scoring with 16 points, while Adair had 14 points and 14 rebounds and sophomore Jazmine Adair also added 14 points. Charlotte junior Sabrina Gregory had 17 points.
The two road games marked the Colonials’ first trips to both schools.
The Colonials host Saint Joseph’s Friday and Temple Sunday to finish their A-10 season.
