James Madison (12-7, 6) won its fifth straight game as the Dukes downed Hofstra (8-9, 4-2) 85-62 in a regionally-televised Colonial Athletic Association women’s basketball game Sunday night at the JMU Convocation Center.
Dukes’ junior guard Kirby Burkholder (Bridgewater, Va./Turner Ashby) scored a career-high 28 points and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds, while senior guard Tarik Hislop (Silver Spring, Md./Paint Branch) added 20 points and a game-high four assists. Freshman guard Precious Hall (Tallahassee, Fla./Maclay) tallied 16 points.
Two Hofstra players had double-doubles: senior forward/guard Candace Bond (Fort Washington, Md./Riverdale Baptist) with 14 points and a game-high 12 rebounds, and senior forward Shante Evans (West Chester, Pa./Henderson) with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Junior guard/forward Annie Payton (Camden, N.J./Camden) added 13 points, and senior forward Deven Green (Germantown, Md./Northwest) scored 11.
The Dukes posted their eighth victory in their last nine games, while Hofstra lost for only the second time in its last nine contests.
JMU broke open a tight game by outscoring the Pride 29-4 over a stretch of 11:21 in the second half. Trailing 46-42, the Dukes held Hofstra scoreless while scoring 12 straight points in a span of 5:39 to build a 54-46 lead with 12:07 to go. Hall scored four points and Hislop hit a 3 during the run.
After Hofstra scored four of the game’s next six points, the Dukes ran off 15 unanswered points to build an insurmountable 71-50 lead with 6:21 remaining. Six different JMU players contributed the first 12 points, and Hall tallied the final five points of the run in a span of 36 seconds.
The Pride got no closer than 16 (72-56 at 4:28) the rest of the way.
In a first half that had six ties and three lead changes, Hofstra led by as many as eight, 24-16, with 10:36 to play. The Pride gained that advantage with a 10-2 scoring run that included two 3-pointers by Payton.
The Dukes, however, finished off the final 7:15 of the half by outscoring Hofstra 18-9. Hislop’s running one-hander down the right baseline fell into the basket as time expired to send JMU to the locker room up 40-37. The half-ending spurt included two 3’s by Hall and Burkholder and six points from Hislop.
Hofstra, though, opened the second half by scoring seven unanswered points to reclaim the lead at 44-40 at 18:39. Evans scored twice on layups and hit a free throw on a three-point play, and Onyeuku also hit a layup during the run, before the Dukes took over and dominated the rest of the half.
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