Women's Basketball Advances To Quarterfinals

Sylvia Crawley and the women's basketball team traveled down to Greensboro, N.C., to compete for the ACC crown and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. After losing four of their last five games, the Eagles drew the seventh seed in the tournament and downed 10th-seeded Virginia Tech by a score of 62-49 in the opening round Thursday.

"We're taking an approach that this is a new season and making corrections," Crawley said.

Carolyn Swords, who leads the nation in field goal percentage and recently received first-team All-ACC honors, opened the scoring for the Eagles, as they jumped out to a 10-2 lead. The Eagles' rebounding advantage helped fuel that run, as they registered a plus-10 differential for the half. "Our opponents have been doubling our guards, so I challenged them [down low], and they buckled down tonight," Crawley said. Ayla Brown led the Eagles with seven boards in the half. The Hokies battled hard on the boards in the second half, cutting into BC's advantage but still trailing, 33-30, in rebounds.

The Eagles came out in a 2-3 zone defense instead of a man defense, which helped limit the Hokies all night. "The team's getting better at zones," Crawley said. "It's also helping us get ready for the next game."

The Eagles' defensive pressure forced the Hokies to shoot only 19.4 percent from the floor in the first half. Nikki Davis lead the Tech offense with 10 points in the game after coming back from a knee injury she suffered on the first play of the game.

Led by Stefanie Murphy, who scored 10 points in the first half, BC shot 33 percent from the floor and knocked down the same percentage of its 3-pointers. The Eagles entered halftime with a 29-17 lead.

In the second half, an early run by Virginia Tech cut BC's lead down to seven when its shots began to fall. The Hokies managed to raise their percentage to 30.8 from the floor for the game. After the early run, Crawley told her players to dig down.

"Earlier in the season, we would look up and not even know what happened, so I told them to dig deep and do the little things," she said. Timely threes by both Brown and Kerri Shields killed the Tech momentum, and the Eagles soon stretched their lead to as high as 20, as BC shot 40.4 percent from the floor and 39 percent from beyond the arc in the game.

When Swords fouled out with nine minutes left, Brittanny Johnson exploded in the second half, sinking seven points in the second half to join Murphy in double digits with 10 of her own. The last six minutes passed without much drama, as BC kept the Hokies at bay with contributions from everyone and point guard Jaclyn Thoman continued to distribute the ball well. She finished with seven assists in the contest.

Virginia Tech's Brittany Jordan recorded a double-double in Virginia Tech's win, but the Eagles keyed on her with Johnson and Jasmine Gill. Jordan was limited to just four points.

The Eagles go into Friday's quarterfinal match-up with the Florida State Seminoles looking to avenge an earlier defeat. In Tallahassee, the Seminoles handed the Eagles a rough 21-point loss. The memory of that loss prompted the team captains to ask Crawley for a film session Thursday night instead of waiting until Friday morning. 

"We're playing well right now, and they're hungry and motivated for a win," Crawley said.