Women’s basketball trailed with 41 seconds left in Saturday’s battle with George Mason until redshirt freshman forward Mayowa Taiwo was fouled and hit her first free throw but missed her second.
Graduate student forward Alexandra Maund collected the rebound on the second try, and redshirt freshman guard Tori Hyduke finished the play at the rim to put the Colonials on top. Redshirt junior guard Sydney Zambrotta and Maund sunk 3-of-4 free throws in the final three seconds to secure the victory.
The Colonials (11-14, 5-7 A-10) defeated the Patriots (8-17, 2-10 A-10) 62–57 in another comeback victory. The squad avenged its 70–60 Atlantic 10 opening loss to the Patriots and nabbed a win during its annual Pink Game in support of cancer awareness.
Maund led the team in scoring with 16 points and eight rebounds. Taiwo and sophomore center Kayla Mokwuah followed, finishing with 11 points apiece and nine and three rebounds, respectively.
Head coach Jennifer Rizzotti said she gave the team time to work on its own this week to study film on George Mason and develop its own game plan. She added that she wanted to build the squad’s confidence while showing it that she supports and trusts the players.
“I thought they responded well,” Rizzotti said. “There were times that they were on each other in the huddles in a way that I usually have to be, which was nice to hear. Because I think when it’s your own, you’re kind of a little more receptive to it than hearing the coach over and over again.”
The Patriots opened the scoring from the charity stripe, but the Colonials stayed neck-and-neck through the next four-minute stretch. George Mason broke away on a seven-point run before freshman forward Faith Blethen hammered a three at the end of the quarter.
The Patriots dominated in the rebound game, snatching 11 rebounds to the Colonials’ four.
“One of our coaches, Coach G, she was really pounding on us to rebound and that was something that was lacking,” Maund said. “As the game went on, you were really trying to get in there. We were trying to get into the right spots, but we weren’t pushing back and also being tougher on the boards and just in general during the game was a big emphasis.”
Despite the Colonials opening the scoring in the second quarter, the Patriots managed to extend their lead to 25–16, their largest lead of the game with 5:18 left to play. The Patriots shot 6-of-16 from the field and 2-of-7 from deep while the Colonials lagged behind, hitting 4-of-13 from the floor and going scoreless from beyond the arc.
Despite their shooting woes, the Colonials found success at the free throw line, sinking 8-of-10 attempts. Graduate student guard Ariel Stephenson hit a buzzer beating reverse layup to bring the score to 32–27 by the end of the half.
“Our toughness was a big thing, just being as strong and as scrappy as they were,” Maund said. “Making sure that we were getting out to their best player number 14 who was hitting a bunch of bullet jumpers on our faces, making sure we’re closing up to shooters all the way. Those were the things we weren’t doing well and they were killing us on.”
The Colonials came out hot in the third quarter. Taiwo converted an early layup and then nabbed a steal and secured another two points on the fast break to put the Colonials within one point of leveling the score.
Hyduke and Blethen sunk consecutive threes to give the Colonials their first lead of the game since the early minutes of the first quarter. The Patriots rallied back on a charge led by junior guard Marika Korpinen. She netted George Mason’s final eight points to elevate her squad 45–41 over the Colonials.
“We thought we were doing an OK job, but at the rate we were going we weren’t going to win the game,” Taiwo said. “We talked about picking up the intensity on our rebounding, on our rotation of offense and just sticking together and outworking the other team.”
Junior guard Lexus Levy hit a three in the fourth quarter to retake the lead, and Maund finished a chance off a rebound to give the Colonials a small cushion. The Patriots rallied again, tying the game with a three. The Colonials went 8-of-12 from the charity stripe and nabbed 13 rebounds in the fourth to keep the Patriots at bay.
The Colonials made defensive stops to close the game ahead at 62–57. Rizzotti said she was “proud” of her guards for playing to the team’s strength by feeding the ball to the post players.
“It takes pressure off you as a guard when you know you can get it in the paint, and they’re going to score 60 percent of the time,” Rizzotti said. “We’re evolving to that, and the next step is to put them all together.”
The Colonials hit the road for another conference rematch at Dayton Wednesday. Tipoff is slated for 7 p.m.
