Virginia Falls in the Smithfield Commonwealth Clash

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Virginia women’s basketball team (14-8, 3-8 ACC) suffered a 72-60 loss against No. 12 Virginia Tech (17-4, 7-4 ACC) on Sunday (Jan. 29) at John Paul Jones Arena in a Smithfield Commonwealth Clash game.

The Hokies went on a 16-2 run in the first quarter and built up a 15-point lead in the first half. Virginia narrowed the gap to three points with 2:21 remaining in the first half, but trailed by six at the break. Virginia Tech built up a 13-point lead in the third, with the Cavaliers chipping it down to a four-point deficit with six minutes left in the game, but an 8-0 Hokie run helped the visiting team hold on for the victory.

Camryn Taylor had her second-straight 20-point performance, leading the Cavaliers with 22 points. London Clarkson scored 15. Taylor Valladay led the team with six rebounds while adding nine points and four assists.

Kayana Traylor led the Hokies with 25 points. Elizabeth Kitley scored 16 points with seven rebounds and four blocked shots.

HOW IT HAPPENED

McKenna Dale drained a three-pointer six seconds into the game, the start of a 5-0 run by the Cavaliers to open the contest, but the Hokies took control soon after, going on a 20-4 run over a six-minute span to build up a 20-9 lead. London Clarkson scored the four points for the Cavaliers in the middle of the run, making a pair of layups, but neither could ignite the offense. The Hokie offense, however, made seven of eight field goal attempts during their run. Virginia Tech hit a half-court shot at the buzzer to lead 26-13 at the end of the opening quarter.

Taylor, who sat out much of the first quarter with two fouls, took over the offense in the second quarter. She went on a personal 6-0 run to cut the deficit to single digits, 30-21, midway through the period. A jumper by Taylor, her fourth bucket of the quarter, followed by a three from Dale and an and-one from Taylor Valladay trimmed the once 15-point deficit to three points with 2:21 remaining. Georgia Amoore ended the run with a three on the opposite end. The Hokies made a layup with three seconds left in the half to go into the break leading 37-31.

Virginia Tech scored the first seven points of the second half, building its lead back up to double digits. Back-to-back jumpers from Clarkson and Taylor narrowed the deficit to nine with 2:24 remaining. Camryn Taylor hit a pair of free throws with 21 seconds left to make it 48-41. Virginia Tech did not score in the final 5:22 of the quarter.

Clarkson and Taylor combined for a 7-0 run with an and-one and a layup from Clarkson followed by a layup from Taylor making it 53-48 with 6:40 left in the game. The Cavaliers pulled to within four, 55-51, on a free throw by Kaydan Lawson a minute later, but Amoore scored a layup followed by a three-pointer from Traylor to push the lead back to nine. A Taylor layup made it a five-point game with 4:12 remaining, but the Hokies went on a 10-2 run to take a 70-57 lead into the final minute of play.

GAME NOTES

• Virginia shot 40.4 percent (23-of-57); Virginia Tech shot 52.9 percent (27-of-51)
• Virginia Tech held a 32-29 edge in rebounding
• Virginia was 12-of-13 from the free throw line
• Camryn Taylor was 9-of-16 from the field
• This was Taylor’s fourth 20-point game of the season
• Sam Brunelle led the team with five assists, tying her career high
• The announced attendance of 5,103 was the first 5,000+ crowd since the announced attendance of 5,117 at the Notre Dame game on Jan. 26, 2020

FROM HEAD COACH AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON

“First of all, I want to say thank you so much to our fans. That was a great turnout. I think we’re getting better and better at filling up the seats every game and we appreciate that. That’s a big part of this. Sorry to the fans that we couldn’t close this game out on our home court, but the first quarter and moving into the beginning of the second quarter kind of killed us, we punched early, they punched back, and we just didn’t respond for a little bit. We had a couple of defensive lapses and things like that that didn’t go our way. We’ve got to continue to build, it’s a process, and this is the building process, and we’ll get better.”

SMITHFIELD COMMONWEALTH CLASH

• The rivalry between Virginia Athletics and Virginia Tech Athletics has a long and storied history dating back more than 125 years within the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Cavaliers and Hokies first faced off on the gridiron in Charlottesville in 1895. First coined the Commonwealth Clash during the 2014-2015 season, the rivalry has expanded and intensified across the 22 sports the two institutions face off in head-to-head competition
• Virginia Tech earns 0.5 points for today’s win
• Virginia leads this year’s clash 5-1.5

ON THE HORIZON

• The Cavaliers play back-to-back road games starting at No. 15 North Carolina on Thursday, Feb. 2 at 6 p.m. in a game that will be televised on the ACC Regional Sports Networks
• Virginia closes the week at Pitt on Sunday, Feb. 5 at 2 p.m. in a game that will be televised on the ACC Network