Going into Sunday’s game against James Madison, William and Mary women’s basketball coach Ed Swanson was a realist. In his first two seasons, the Tribe had lost four games to the Dukes by a total of 129 points.
That calculates to a margin of 32.3 per game.
“I said to my staff, ‘I just hope we can compete with them mentally,'” Swanson said. “I hoped we could come out feeling good about how we competed.
“In the past, when they went on a 6-0 run against us, it was ‘close the door.’ I just wanted us to be able to step on the court and compete mentally, feel good, and not shy away and be intimidated.”
The Tribe did more than that. With a 65-59 overtime win, W&M broke a 10-game losing streak against James Madison that stretched back to the 2009-10 season.
Most of those losses were blowouts, and sure enough, W&M trailed by 10 points early in the second quarter Sunday. The Tribe (10-2, 1-0 CAA) avoided the early knockout but still trailed by four points with a minute left in regulation.
Then Abby Rendle scored, and Alexandra Masaquel came up with a steal. With four seconds left, Marlena Tremba went 2-for-2 from the free-throw line to tie it.
Then came overtime, which W&M began with a 7-0 run. It was over, and JMU (7-5, 0-1) had been defeated.
Masaquel (14 points, 15 rebounds) and Rendle (14-10) both had double-doubles. Tremba went 1-for-10 from the field but 7-for-9 from the free-throw line, including the two biggies at the end.
“There’s a lot of things you can look at on the stat sheet and stuff, but the team is starting to develop their roles and fight more than they used to,” Swanson said. “We were down 10 in the first half and we didn’t flinch. We kept fighting and challenging.
“We were down four with two minutes left, and I remember thinking, ‘We need to be up four to be able to hang on.’ They showed me a lot to be able to get the stops they needed and battle back. Even if we had lost that game yesterday in overtime or on the last possession, I’d be talking the same way.”
W&M is off to its best 12-game start since 1977-78, when it also started 10-2. But in that season, most of the Tribe’s wins came against non-Division I schools.
And consider this: There are four women’s basketball programs that have won 1,000 games. In a six-day span, W&M defeated two of them (Old Dominion on Dec. 29 and JMU Sunday).
But more than that, William and Mary is in a place it hasn’t been in a while: First. True, it’s a five-way tie, but the Tribe has knocked off the two-time defending champion and pre-season favorite. Swanson couldn’t have scripted a better start.
But with 12 games down, there are 17 to go in the regular season.
“We haven’t turned the corner yet,” Swanson said. “We’re still striving for that. But we’ve had a real good week, and I hope we’ve gained some confidence.
“Now, we have to get back to business. We have to remember what we did to get to this point. We’re going to Towson Friday night, and we have to make sure we’re grounded again.”
Johnson can be reached by phone at 757-247-4649.
