Women’s Basketball: Virginia improves to 9-0 with 89-68 win at Penn State

Virginia got out to an early 11-2 lead, went up 19 early in the second quarter, and cruised from there to an 89-68 win at Penn State on Wednesday in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

The Cavaliers (9-0, 1-0 ACC) are now 9-0, the first for the UVA program dating all the way back to 1991.

Mir McLean scored a career-high 24 points and grabbed 13 rebounds for her fourth double-double of the season. Camryn Taylor scored 17 points with six rebounds.

Makenna Marisa led Penn State (7-1) with 16 points.

Penn State briefly got within hailing distance with a 6-0 mini-run that got the margin to 37-26 with 1:48 left in the second quarter, but Yonta Vaughn hit her second three of the game in the final 30 seconds, giving UVA a 42-27 lead, and a pair of free throws from McLean with 4.4 seconds remaining pushed the halftime advantage to 44-28.

Kaydan Lawson opened the second half by hitting Virginia’s sixth three-pointer of the game. The Cavaliers built up their first 20-point lead, 55-35, on a 6-0 run capped by a Carole Miller layup with 5:56 remaining in the period.

The two teams traded points for the rest of the quarter, with the Cavaliers taking a 68-48 lead into the final 10 minutes of play.

Alexia Smith scored five-straight points in the final 1:09 of the game, hitting UVA’s ninth three-pointer followed by a fastbreak layup to give the Cavaliers their largest lead, 89-66.

“I’m just very proud of our players,” UVA coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton said. “This was a gritty, tough win for us and to go on the road and perform the way we did was just really impressive. I thought we moved the ball well. We shared the ball. We played together defensively. We played pretty good. And this is just the beginning. So I’m just excited.”