For 20 minutes, it looked like the Cavaliers might not show up for their own Senior Day. For the next 19 minutes and 59 seconds, they clawed their way back from a 23-point deficit to take the lead on their home floor. Then, with 1.7 seconds left on the clock, Virginia's one-point lead slipped away.
Virginia Tech junior guard Carleigh Wenzel stepped to the stripe with a mere second remaining, and sank both attempts, lifting the Hokies to an 83-82 victory over the Cavaliers at John Paul Jones Arena and denying Virginia a 20th regular season win — a milestone not reached since the 2016-17 season.
“That one hurts,” Coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton said. “Obviously [we] wanted to win that game for many reasons … on Senior Day, against our rivals, all of that.”
The loss — Virginia’s 10th of the season — drops the Cavaliers to 19-10 overall and 11-7 in ACC play heading into the postseason. Virginia Tech improves to 22-8 and 12-6 in conference, having now beaten Virginia in three of the last four meetings. The Hokies led for 37 minutes, while the Cavaliers held a lead for just 42 seconds. And yet, a key characteristic of the game was not Virginia Tech’s dominance, but the near-miracle Virginia almost pulled off to erase it.
The Cavaliers came out flat from the opening tip. Virginia Tech ripped off a 10-0 run to start the game, forcing four Virginia turnovers in the first three minutes. The Hokies pushed the run to 13-0 before sophomore forward Breona Hurd sank two free throws later in the first frame.
Sophomore guard Mackenzie Nelson orchestrated the Virginia Tech offense, racking up five assists in the first quarter alone while setting up open threes and fast-break layups. Junior forward Carys Baker knocked down three first-quarter threes, and the Hokies shot 50 percent from beyond the arc in the opening period to build a 27-13 advantage.
The bleeding continued in the second quarter. Virginia Tech pushed its lead to 23 points on a Wenzel jumper, and the Cavaliers ran into the locker room trailing 43-28. Junior guard Kymora Johnson — Virginia’s leading scorer — had just one point at the break.
But Johnson flipped a switch at halftime. The Cavaliers opened the third quarter by going 6-of-8 from the field — and she was the engine behind it. Johnson scored 16 third-quarter points in a blistering stretch, finding her lanes and attacking the paint relentlessly, a stark contrast to her field goal drought in the first. The scoring runs were in large part due to Agugua-Hamilton shifting the team to more zone defensively, where the Hokies had been scoring at will in man-to-man.
“Once we started getting stops, we were able to play in transition,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “[Kymora] got going in transition, Paris, we started running. I was talking about running in transition a lot, but we just played with more urgency, to be honest, in the second half. Obviously, there [were] some tactical things, but the flip switched.”
Virginia outscored Virginia Tech 29-18 in the third period, shooting 59 percent from the floor. Graduate guard Romi Levy added two-pointers to trim the lead further, and a buzzer-beating three from Johnson — set up by an assist from senior guard Paris Clark — sent the Cavaliers into the fourth quarter trailing just 61-57.
Virginia continued to press in the fourth. Clark scored consecutive layups — the second assisted by Johnson — to tie the game at 64 with eight minutes remaining. The two teams traded blows from there — senior forward Kilah Freelon grabbed two offensive boards and converted both putbacks to push the Hokies ahead. Nelson hit a pair of free throws and added a layup to help Virginia Tech maintain a slim cushion. Baker’s three-pointer with 3:24 remaining pushed the Hokies’ lead back to six at 79-73.
But the Cavaliers did not fold — junior forward Sa'Myah Smith grabbed an offensive rebound, scored and drew the foul for a three-point play to make it 79-76. Senior forward Tabitha Amanze delivered the defining play of Virginia’s comeback. With one minute remaining, Johnson's layup attempt missed, but Amanze converted on a putback jumper from an offensive board, drew a foul on Freelon and sank the free throw to tie the game at 81.
Clark then went to the line with 24 seconds left and gave the Cavaliers their first lead since the first quarter. She missed the first but buried the second, putting Virginia ahead 82-81. It seemed, then, that the Cavaliers’ storybook ending was written.
It wasn’t.
Nelson's three-point attempt with nine seconds left in the game missed, but senior guard Mel Daley clutched the offensive rebound. Her putback attempt also missed, but she corralled her own rebound again. With one second remaining, Levy was controversially called for a foul on Wenzel, to the outrage of the Virginia bench and crowd.
Wenzel — who finished with a game-high 29 points — stepped to the line and buried both free throws. Virginia Tech 83, Virginia 82. The Cavaliers called a timeout with 1.7 seconds on the clock to draw up an inbounds play, but a pass to Smith and her subsequent desperation three-pointer at the buzzer fell short.
Johnson finished with 26 points — 25 of which came in the second half — along with seven rebounds and six assists in 40 minutes. On their Senior Day, Clark added 16 points and four assists, while Amanze contributed 11 points, seven rebounds and two blocks in a memorable performance. Smith chipped in 10 points and six boards off the bench.
For the Hokies, Wenzel’s 29 points were complemented by Nelson’s 11-assist, 10-point double-double. Most strikingly, Virginia dominated in the paint 48-24, but Virginia Tech’s three-point shooting — 10-of-26 — provided the necessary margin.
The loss is a bitter pill to swallow for a team that entered the day looking to check a large swath of boxes. In January's meeting at Cassell Coliseum, the Cavaliers also fell victim to the Hokie duo of Wenzel and Nelson in a 76-64 defeat, a game plagued by 28 Virginia fouls and just five team assists.
Sunday’s rematch saw the Cavaliers address some of those issues — 15 assists and a more competitive foul margin — but the first-half collapse created too deep a hole, and the late-game execution that has haunted Virginia all season struck again in the cruelest fashion.
“We gotta fix some things,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “We got to get our fight back. We got to just get ourselves back on track and go in there one game at a time and do what we know we can do.”
Virginia now turns its attention to postseason play — as the No. 8 seed in the standings — where the Cavaliers will need that kind of urgency from the opening tip, not just when their backs are against the wall.
Read More
Weismer walks it off as Party at Palmer gives the Cavaliers plenty to celebrate
By Ben McNiff | 48 minutes ago“Everyone is getting us ready for ACC play,” Hardin said. “That’s what this part of the season is all about — seeing who can do what and when and how. It’s to put ourselves in high-leverage situations, put ourselves in tough situations and compete.”
Dietrich takes down Svajda as No. 2 men’s tennis beats SMU
By Thomas Baxter | 1 hours agoThe Cavaliers will now travel to the west coast for matches at California and No. 12 Stanford.
250 mph, Space Florida, racecars and Virginia Motorsports
By Emory Huffman | 16 hours agoThe team competes in Formula SAE, an international student design competition where college students design, build and race formula-style electric racecars.
