Drexel women beat James Madison, 51-48, with 17-point comeback; Villanova women drop contest vs. Seton Hall
Drexel is usually built to play off of its defense, but the offense had to step up as the defense locked in during the rally.
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Drexel’s foundation is its defense. It tends to wear opponents down and the offense just takes care of the rest.
The Dragons don’t like to come from behind, so when they were down 17 points midway through the second quarter, things didn’t look promising against James Madison.
Drexel nearly scored as many points in the third quarter as it did in the rest of the game, and that defense came to life. The Dragons defeated the Dukes, 51-48, at the Daskalakis Athletic Center.
JMU (12-9, 8-6 Colonial Athletic Association) went from shooting 46% in the first half to 22% in the second half. While the Dukes struggled, Drexel’s top two scoring options began taking over. Keishana Washington (18 points) and Hannah Nihill (20) scored 38 of Drexel’s 51 points, including 10 each in the third quarter. The Dragons shot 43% in the second half after shooting 24% in the first.
Even after its 23-8 third-quarter explosion, Drexel (11-7, 8-5) led by just two points entering the fourth. The Dragons were down, 48-47, with 1 minute, 16 seconds left. The ball was inbounded to Washington in the short corner. She weaved her way through the middle of the floor with the defense chasing from behind and scored a left-handed layup over the outstretched arms of a help defender.
Washington’s basket proved to be the game-winner. She added one more layup with 9 seconds remaining to slow down the heartbeats of Dragons fans. The Dukes missed two three-pointers in the final seconds.
The two schools will meet again on Sunday in a big game to determine seeding for the CAA tournament. Drexel is third and JMU is fourth in the CAA standings. The loser will be seeded fourth, and Drexel could move to as high as second with a Towson loss against top-seeded Delaware.
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Villanova women split regular season series with Seton Hall
Seton Hall got its revenge against Villanova at the Pavilion.
The Wildcats won the first matchup on Jan. 6 and had four players score in double figures. On Saturday night, that list was trimmed to two.
Maddy Siegrist scored 27 points, but the rest of the Wildcats struggled in a 67-55 loss to the Pirates (13-6, 11-5 Big East).
Each quarter was tightly contested until the third. A 9-0 run was all the space the Pirates needed. The lead grew to as high as 14 and was only in single digits in the beginning of the fourth after a Siegrist three-pointer.
Getting to the No. 3 seed would have allowed the Wildcats (14-5, 9-5) to avoid UConn, which is undefeated in Big East action. The loss, combined with a DePaul win earlier against Providence eliminates that option. Villanova is currently seeded fifth in the Big East standings.