January 22, 2003

The Virginia Tech Hokies blew two late leads and very nearly found themselves on the wrong end of a heartbreaking BIG EAST loss at the hands of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. However, the Hokies used overtime and some timely free-throw shooting from senior Chrystal Starling to bring home a crucial 66-64 conference victory on January 22 in front of 2,110 fans at Cassell Coliseum. With the win, Tech improves to 13-4 overall and 4-2 in the BIG EAST while Rutgers falls to 9-5 and 3-2 in the conference.

Rutgers struck first in the overtime on a Mauri Horton layup, but Tech's Ieva Kublina (Riga, Latvia) answered with a baseline jumper. Tech hit five free-throws while Rutgers buried another jumper and hit two free-throws of its own, leaving the Hokies with a 62-61 lead and the ball.

The Hokies bled the shot clock down to its final tick, at which point Starling (Syracuse, NY) hit a baseline jumper fading out of bounds. But the euphoria of Tech's crowd was quickly quelled by a Horton 3-pointer. The Rutgers senior drained the trey from NBA range with 17 seconds remaining, knotting the score at 64.

After a timeout, Tech put the ball in Starling's hands. Horton, potentially the hero just seconds earlier, came up to trap Starling but was whistled for a foul, Rutgers' 26th of the game, when she knocked Starling to the floor with 1.2 seconds remaining. Tech's best free-throw shooter calmly stepped to the line and sank both to seal the win.

Starling led the team in scoring with 21 points, 16 of those coming in the second half and overtime. Sophomore Erin Gibson (Galax, VA) nailed down her second consecutive double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Kublina just missed a double-double with her 18-point, nine-rebound effort. Horton paced the Scarlet Knights with 23 points on 10-of-16 shooting.

The Hokies dominated the smaller Scarlet Knights on the boards, pounding their way to a 39-22 advantage and a 27-9 edge in the second half and overtime. Twenty of Tech's rebounds came off the offensive glass, leading to a 16-4 advantage in second chance points.

Rutgers gave the Hokies plenty of opportunities to put the game away in regulation by committing 22 fouls during the first two halves, including 14 in the second half. In fact, Tech was in the bonus by the 15:31 mark of the second frame and in the double bonus at the 11:54 mark. But the Hokies could not take advantage of the charity, shooting a miserable 8 of 17 from the line in the second half.

The Hokies nearly wilted under the Rutgers press, but found themselves down only 41-34 with under 13 minutes remaining in the second half. The Hokies then embarked on an 18-3 run that lasted until the 4:00 minute mark. The Hokies could not close the door on Rutgers though, as the Scarlet Knights ended the game on an 11-3 run to tie the score at 55 apiece.

At the end of regulation, it was Rutgers who had the final shot to seal the win, but a wide-open Chelsea Newton 3-pointer rimmed out.

Rutgers could seemingly do no wrong in the first half as the Scarlet Knights hit 60 percent from the field (12 of 20). The smaller Scarlet Knights even outrebounded the Hokies 13 to 12. The Hokies shot just 32 percent from the field, but despite that, Tech was only down 28-23.

Tech gets the weekend off before traveling to Miami for a BIG EAST contest on Tuesday, January 28 at 7 p.m.