The Virginia Tech women's basketball team snapped a five-game losing streak against the Demon Deacons of Wake Forest this Sunday in Cassell Coliseum, easily winning by a score of 79-55.
This was their second meeting in a week as Wake Forest beat Tech (12-16, 2-11 ACC) on February 15, 44-66. That loss, combined with their devastating, 46-64, loss to Duke gave the Hokies the drive to return to Blacksburg and regain the respect they deserve.
"I liked their energy today," said head coach Beth Dunkenberger. "I liked how they shared the ball, found the open person and then how we finished."
"I think coach warned us going into last week's game how we had to play and we didn't listen," said senior guard Laura Haskins. "We learned our lesson, that's for sure, and turned the tables on them."
After an extremely physical first half, Tech walked into half-time with a 29-18 lead. They opened up that advantage to 28 after a 13-0 run in the second half.
Both the Hokies and the Demon Deacons (18-8, 5-7) were plagued with turnovers during the first half of play; they combined for a total of 24. Tech turned over 14 of those, six of which occurred during the first seven minutes of the game.
Haskins and junior guard Lindsay Biggs rewrote the record books in the win.
Haskins tied Carrie Mason for sixth in total career steals during the first twenty minutes of play, putting Haskins' total at 173 steals in 121 games. In the second half, Biggs passed Jeni Garber to take the third position in career three-point field goals with 130 in 90 games.
It was also a day of firsts, as freshman Shanel Harrison scored her first career 3-pointer as Hokie in the sixth minute of the second half. It was three of her 13 points.
Brittany Gordon notched her second career double-double, both coming at the expense of the Demon Deacons this year.
"I feel like we are communicating better now," Gordon said. "It's kind of like a reward to get a rebound and get the ball on the offensive end."
Utahya Drye led the Hokies with 17 points and four rebounds, Biggs had 14, while Gordon and Nikki Davis each had 12.
The Hokies shot a season-high 65.2 percent from the field, 50 percent behind the arc and 81.3 percent from the line.
"I thought Virginia Tech played very very hard, and extremely well," said Wake Forest head coach Mike Petersen, "when they became the aggressor we clearly backed down."
"Our team defense was horrific," Petersen said. "Our defensive execution was about equal to our offensive execution."
The Demon Deacons shot a total of 33.3 percent from the field and 27.3 percent from beyond the arc.
"It feels great to win, everybody's really happy and we just going to try and take this momentum from this one and into our next game against Georgia Tech," Haskins said. "I'd love to get a win because it's senior night."
The Hokies take on Georgia Tech on Thursday at Cassell Coliseum in the regular season finale.