WILLIAMSBURG — The William & Mary women’s basketball team survived a scare from Hampton on Sunday afternoon to score a 72-65 overtime victory at the Hampton Convocation Center.
Bella Nascimento took over to get the Tribe over the hump, making 9-of-10 free throws in the last minute of regulation and overtime to secure the victory. The senior posted a game-high 25 points.
With the win the Tribe improved to 7-3 in CAA action, tying the program record for best conference start through 10 games. The mark, ironically, ties last year’s team for the best 10-game start which was also earned on Super Bowl Sunday at Hampton.
Early on W&M (10-11, 7-3 CAA) seemed poised to control the game from start to finish. The Tribe hit its first four shots of the afternoon, leading 13-3 at the 6:38 mark behind two Nascimento triples and another from Rebekah Frisby-Smith.
Hampton turned up its defensive intensity from there, however, only allowing three more Tribe points the rest of the frame as W&M led 16-11 after one.
The Pirates run continued with the hosts taking their first lead, 17-16, two minutes into the second quarter.
Both sides would trade buckets from there with Kayla Rolph and Natalie Fox scoring to help W&M keep pace. Emma West’s converted 3-point play at the 1:02 mark gave the Green and Gold a 27-22 advantage which would shrink to 27-26 when the buzzer went off to end the half.
The third quarter followed the second in nature but was higher scoring.
Hampton came out to quickly take a four-point lead 90 seconds into the quarter before W&M battled back to lead 40-35 at the 4:06 mark.
The 13-4 Tribe run was sparked by six points from Fox while Nascimento added two buckets of her own.
Fox was one of four Tribe players in double figures, scoring a career-high 11 points on the day, with Nascimento, Jana Sallman (11) and Rolph (10) completing the quartet.
The Pirates responded with a spurt of their own, scoring 14 of the quarter’s final 19 points to hold a 49-45 lead with 10 minutes remaining in regulation.
W&M were the ones who relied on the defense in the fourth, scraping away to eventually regain the lead 54-53 at the 4:02 mark on a Sallman hook shot. The sophomore center would score three more points as well to give the Tribe a four-point advantage with 68 seconds to go.
Hampton wouldn’t go quietly however, and after only scoring seven points in the first 9:43 of the fourth, scored five in the final 17 seconds to force overtime at 61-all.
Like the final three quarters, overtime seemed destined to be a back-and-forth affair and was for the first three minutes.
The Pirates knotted the game at 65-65 with 2:02 to go before Nascimento would take over, scoring five points to lead a 7-0 Tribe run till the final buzzer in a 72-65 win.
After making four 3-pointers in the first quarter W&M made just one for the remainder of the game, not even attempting a triple in the fourth quarter and overtime. W&M finished the afternoon 43.9% from the field to Hampton’s 31.4%.
The Tribe overcame 32 turnovers on the day by outrebounding the Pirates 53-29. The +24 margin on the glass is W&M’s largest under Erin Dickerson Davis.
Rolph led the team with a career-high 13 boards for her first career double-double, while Nascimento grabbed nine and Fox eight.
Anahi-Lee Cauley’s five assists served as the team-high in that category.
Up Next
The Tribe will hit the road again to take on Drexel Friday night. Tip is set for 6 p.m. on FloCollege with a free audio broadcast on the Tribe Sports Network.
