Hot Dukes rally, knock off W&M, 68-63

The James Madison women’s basketball team rallied from 15 points down to win 68-63 at William and Mary in Colonial Athletic Association action Sunday afternoon at William and Mary Hall.

The Dukes upped their overall record to 14-7 and its CAA mark to 8-1 as the Dukes maintained sole possession of second place in the league standings.  JMU posted its 11th victory in its last 12 games.

W&M, which saw its winning streak end at three games, is 5-15 overall and 3-6 in the CAA.

Freshman guard Precious Hall (Tallahassee, Fla./Maclay) led the Dukes in scoring with 19 points, one below her career high.  Junior guard Kirby Burkholder (Bridgewater, Va./Turner Ashby) had her fourth double-double of the season with 16 points and 10 rebounds and also had a team-high four assists and a game-high three steals.  Senior guard Tarik Hislop (Silver Spring, Md./Paint Branch) also scored in double figures with 12, and sophomore forward Toia Giggetts (Norfolk, Va./Lake Taylor) added nine points and tied for game rebounding honors with 10.

W&M senior forward Emily Correal (Venetia, Pa./Peter’s Township) was the game’s top scorer with 28 points, 12 of which came at the foul line where she connected on 12 of 13 attempts.  Junior forward Kaitlyn Mathieu (Waterboro, Maine/Worcester Academy, Mass.) was the only other W&M player in double figures in scoring with 10; she led the Tribe with eight rebounds.

The Tribe netted 19 unanswered points to build a 21-6 lead with 11:30 to go in the opening half.  Matthieu began the run with back-to-back 3-pointers and scored eight of her team’s points.

JMU, however, mounted a comeback, outscoring W&M 21-6 over a span of 7:19 to tie the game at 27-27 with 3:33 remaining.

But with the game tied at 31-31 with 1:24 to play, W&M tallied the final five points of the half to take a 36-31 advantage into intermission.

With W&M up 42-39 with 15:36 to play, the Dukes scored the game’s next 17 points, gaining a 56-42 lead with 10:15 remaining.  Burkholder scored eight and Hall five during the run, which gave the Dukes a lead they would not relinquish.

The Tribe did get as close as four, 58-54, with 6:23 to play, after scoring nine straight points.  Correal tallied seven of those nine.  However, JMU scored the next six points, and W&M got no closer than five the rest of the way.