Women’s Basketball: UVA loses 59-49 at USC

UVA (1-1, 0-0 ACC) suffered a 59-49 loss at Southern California (2-0, 0-0 Pac-12) on Saturday at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, Calif.

Senior forward Lisa Jablonowski (Ernster, Luxembourg) led the Cavaliers in scoring with 13 points while also grabbing nine rebounds. Freshman Carole Miller (Alexandria, Va.), in her first career start, also had nine rebounds and contributed nine points.

Both the Cavaliers and Trojans suffered through stretches of cold shooting. USC managed to push out to a 22-17 lead late in the first half, but a steal and a fastbreak layup from Jablonowski in the final seconds of the period narrowed the gap to 22-19 at the break. The Trojans built up a double-digit lead, 33-23, with 7:04 remaining in the third quarter, but back-to-back layups from Jablonowski narrowed the gap.

The Cavaliers got to within four on a jumper from senior guard Jocelyn Willoughby (East Orange, N.J.) with three minutes remaining in the third quarter, and were down five with 8:18 remaining in the game, but USC went on an 8-2 run to build their advantage back up to double-digits. Virginia trailed by seven, 56-49, with 48 seconds remaining, but the Women of Troy went 3-of-4 from the free throw line down the stretch to close out the game.

“Our timing was off. We could not get settled in,” UVA coach Tina Thompson said. “We were taking shots we would normally not take. We were rushing them a little bit. We just weren’t in our normal rhythm. We didn’t do a good job of capitalizing on our stops. Our effort was there, but we just had a tough time putting the ball in the basket.”