JMU women make it four straight, defeat George Mason, 71-55

The JMU women’s basketball team posted its fourth straight victory as the Dukes won easily, 71-55, at  George Mason in Colonial Athletic Association play Thursday night at the Patriot Center.

The Dukes (11-7, 5-1) won for the eighth time in their last nine games.  The Patriots (6-11, 1-5) lost for the sixth time in their last seven contests.

Four Dukes scored in double figures, with freshman guard Precious Hall (Tallahassee, Fla./Maclay) and junior guard Kirby Burkholder (Bridgewater, Va./Turner Ashby) each contributing 20.  It was a career scoring high for Hall, who also had a career-high seven steals.  Burkholder led JMU with seven rebounds, and Hall finished with six rebounds.

Senior guard Tarik Hislop (Silver Spring, Md./Paint Branch) scored 11  points and  handed out a team-high six assists, and redshirt senior forward Kanita Shepherd (Garner, N.C./Garner Magnet) was 5-for-7 from the field, scoring a season-high 10 points.

The Patriots were led by Rahneeka Saunders, who had team highs of 14 points, eight rebounds, seven assists and three steals.

JMU was down 19-15 with 4:47 left in the first half.  The Dukes, however, put the game away by outscoring Mason 37-9 over the final 3:48 of the first half and the opening 6:03 of the second half.  That gave JMU its largest lead of the night, 52-28, with 13:57 to play.  In that span of 9:51 JMU went 13-for-15 from the field, including 6-for-6 from 3-point range.