Williamsburg Sun

Tribe Scribe: W&M Gives a Strong Defensive Effort but Falls at Drexel

Facing the CAA's first-place team, along with the nation's second-leading scorer, William & Mary couldn't have played much better on the defensive end. The Tribe held Drexel to its second-lowest point total of the season. And it held Keishana Washington seven points below her average.

Yet W&M was unable to get it done on its end of the floor, at least on a consistent basis, falling 55-47 to the Dragons Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia. The Tribe (15-12, 10-6) trimmed a 12-point deficit midway through the third quarter to two with 9:05 remaining but would get no further.

W&M shot 33% from the floor, a number that was largely influenced by a 2-for-17 stretch in the final 14 minutes of the first half. The Tribe went from up 12-10 to down 28-17 at halftime, which forced it to play catch-up the rest of the way.

"They kept switching defenses on us, and that got us a little bit rattled," W&M coach Erin Dickerson Davis said. "We took halftime to regroup, but it was a hard offensive game for us all day. They did a great job on us defensively.

"They were super-intense. They were a step quicker than us today, and it took us a second to adjust. We had a much better second half once we calmed down a bit, but we just ran out of time."

Riley Casey led W&M with 17 points, and Sydney Wagner added 13. For the third time this season, William & Mary won the boards by outrebounding Drexel 35-32. The Tribe had a 16-10 advantage on the offensive glass and outscored the Dragons 12-6 on second chance points.

Washington, who finished with 20 points on 6-of-20 shooting, hit a short jumper to give Drexel a 36-24 lead with 6:34 left in the third quarter. But over the next seven minutes, W&M went on a 16-4 run on 5-of-9 shooting from the floor.

Wagner scored six points in that stretch, and Rebekah Frisby-Smith made a layup that cut the Dragons' lead to 40-38 with 9:05 remaining in the game.

That was as close as W&M would get. And Drexel, which lost to the Tribe 74-58 last month in Kaplan, regained control with a 14-5 run.

The Tribe began the day in a four-way tie with North Carolina A&T, Towson, and Northeastern for third place in the conference standings. But with Sunday's loss, and with the other three teams winning, W&M is now in sole possession of sixth place with two games left in the regular season.

After returning home from Philadelphia, the Tribe will head back to the Northeast Thursday night to play Monmouth (13-14, 8-8). Forty-two hours later, W&M will host Hofstra (9-18, 3-13) at Kaplan.

"Going up to Monmouth is going to be another tough game," Davis said. "I was telling our girls, nobody cares what you did to this point. Every game you have to play like it's the most important game of the season. That's how we're going to be going into Monmouth and Hofstra." 

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