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Women's basketball knocks off No. 8 Louisville

Cavaliers defeat Cardinals 75-69 on senior day

The Virginia women’s basketball team ended its regular season at John Paul Jones Arena with a bang Sunday afternoon by upsetting No. 8 Louisville 75-59 on Senior Day and securing its first win against a ranked opponent and 13th win at home this year.

“I am so excited for the girls,” coach Joanne Boyle said. “That was just a great team win and we have been really knocking on the door with some big teams, and it’s really nice on senior night at home to come out with a W against such a great team.”

Senior forward Sarah Beth Barnette — who was honored before the start of the game in the Senior Day Ceremony — got the start for the Cavaliers. Senior center Sarah Imovbioh scored her 1,000th point and a total of 22 in the game to help her team secure the upset.

“It was really good, when you’re having a good game and then you get that accomplishment,” Imovbioh said. “I was just really excited and I’m thankful for my teammates for putting me in positions to actually get those points.”

Junior guard Faith Randolph added 23 points and eight assists, while Imovbioh also grabbed 17 rebounds to secure the ACC regular season rebounding title.

In the opening five minutes of the game, the two teams combined for a total of seven turnovers, while only making four shots. After a media timeout, the two teams traded baskets before Louisville missed four straight shots allowing Virginia to take a 13-10 lead. The Cardinals remedied their poor shooting and made their next four buckets to regain the lead with 9:27 remaining.

The two teams went back and forth for the remainder of the half with the Cavaliers holding a one-point advantage at halftime, 32-31. Despite the messy offensive start, both teams finished the half shooting better than 47%.

Virginia was able to extend that one-point lead in the second half when it came out firing. The Cavaliers opened the half on an 11-3 run, which included three straight from beyond the arc. Louisville was two for eleven from the field to start the half, but the second shot of that string started a 9-2 run for the Cardinals, who retook a 47-45 lead with 9:37 left in the game.

The Cardinals’ lead was short lived, however, as their only points for nearly seven minutes came from the charity stripe. Virginia took over and went on a 9-0 run of its own, including a baseline drive by sophomore guard Breyana Mason. Louisville’s leading scorer in the game, sophomore forward Emmonni Henderson committed the foul that sent Mason to the line and would foul out in the Cavaliers’ next possession. She left the game with 13 points.

Randolph finished an and-one opportunity late in the half to give Virginia a 61-53 lead to diminish Louisville’s hopes of coming back. Virginia only made one more bucket in the game but was able to extend its lead from the free throw line as Louisville started fouling with 2:38 left on the clock.

“It feels good,” Randolph said. “We’ve just been fighting this whole season. We just wanted to get that good win and I felt like we got that today. It was a team effort for forty minutes. I thought we played for forty minutes, from the beginning to the end. It was a great win for us.”

Coming into the game, Louisville had been holding opponents to an ACC-best average of 58.4 points per game, but the Cavaliers shot 52.6% in the second half and 51.2% for the game to reach the 75-point mark. The Cavaliers also made three of five three-point attempts in the second half.

Meanwhile, the Cavalier defense held the Louisville offense to just 9 of 37 attempts in the second half and a total of 20 points in the paint after allowing the Cardinals to score 52 down low in the two teams’ first meeting earlier this season. The Cavaliers also outrebounded the Cardinals 39-28.

“We did such a better job defensively,” Boyle said. “Our ball screen defense and our help side defense was so much better in this game and the girls did a great job focusing the last two days on what we needed to do. I didn’t know if Jeff [Louisville coach Jeff Walz] was going to run different stuff or the same. He came in and I thought we were able to get some slips on them as well. I thought our on-ball defense, our transition defense, and our help-side defense was just on point tonight.”

The Cavaliers will return to action next week when they travel to Greensboro, North Carolina for the ACC Tournament.

--Compiled by Chanhong Luu

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