Women's Basketball Edged at Virginia, 72-66

Monday, December 29

Charlottesville, Va.

7:00 p.m.

Drexel University

6-5

Virginia

10-3

Drexel

Virginia

Photo by: Greg Carroccio

12/29/2014 9:20:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Drexel women's basketball team hung tough with Virginia on Monday night, but came up just a little short in the end, falling 72-66 at the Cavalier Classic. The Dragons trailed by six with the ball and 1:30 to play, but Virginia let Drexel get no closer as the Dragons finished their non-conference slate at 6-5.

Freshmen Kelsi Lidge and Florence Ouattara set career highs with nine points apiece in the contest. Sarah Curran led the Dragons with 15 points, while Rachel Pearson added 12 and Jackie Schluth chipped in 10. Carrie Alexander also added nine points in addition to five assists and two steals. Pearson was named to the Cavalier Classic All-Tournament Team after averaging 18.5 points per game over the weekend event. Drexel fell for the first time this season when getting three double-digit scorers.

The teams played back and forth for the first 10 minutes of the game. After Drexel took a quick 7-2 lead, Virginia responded to even things up. The Cavaliers hit their first four three-point attempts, but Drexel was able to respond. The Dragons were hitting at a 50 percent clip early on as the teams exchanged leads until Drexel went up 19-18 with 10:03 remaining on a backdoor cut by Rachel Pearson.

That would be the last Drexel field goal of the half as Virginia's physical presence on the interior was able to shut down the backdoor cuts that worked so efficiently early in the period. The Dragons' defense kept the deficit low for the most part, and Drexel was able to get to the free throw line a couple times late in the half. At intermission, Drexel trailed by nine, 31-22. Pearson, coming off a career high 25 points in the victory over Miami, got nine in the opening stanza. She did it primarily through the backdoor looks, and did not hit a three-pointer in the opening period.

The Dragons' field goal drought was not halted until the 15:34 mark when Kelsi Lidge cut inside and hit a turnaround jumper to cut the Virginia lead at that point back to nine. Drexel continued its stinginess on the defensive end, slowing the Cavaliers' progress and slowly chipping away at the lead. With 8:34 to play, Ouattara followed up a missed three-pointer and put it back to pull the Dragons within a point at 44-43.

That seemed to wake up the Cavaliers on the offensive end, as Drexel suffered its lone defensive letdown of the evening. Over the next 2:53, Virginia burst out for 10 straight points, rebuilding its largest lead of the night at 54-43.

Still, the Dragons did not fold. Drexel ended the run with a jumper by Curran. Following a stop on the defensive end, Schluth knocked down both free throws to get the deficit back down to seven. It was a six-point game with 3:55 to play after another Schluth bucket, but Drexel was stalled there. The Dragons had it at six again when Ouattara nailed a three-pointer with 1:30 to play and forced a missed jumper by the Cavaliers, but Virginia got one of its 14 offensive rebounds on the night, working the clock down to 51 seconds before getting a lay-up to push things back out to eight. The Dragons trailed by 11 with as little as 19 seconds to play, but got late buckets from Alexander and Curran to provide the final margin.

Monday's game closed out the Dragons' non-conference schedule for the 2014-15 season. The next time the Dragons will be in action will be the Colonial Athletic Association opener, back at home at the Daskalakis Athletic Center against Northeastern at 2:00 p.m.