February 1, 2003

The Virginia Tech women's basketball team stretched its home winning streak to 10 games and collected another important BIG EAST victory by downing the Providence College Friars 80-56 on Feb. 1 in front of 2,704 fans. The win moves the Hokies to 14-5 on the year and 5-3 in the BIG EAST, while Providence falls to 8-11 and 2-6 in the conference.

Tech's 6-foot-4 junior Ieva Kublina (Riga, Latvia) scored 25 points on 9-of-12 shooting to lead four Hokies in double figures. Sophomore Erin Gibson (Galax, Va.) tallied 15 points while Carrie Mason (Seneca, Pa.) contributed 10. Chrystal Starling (Syracuse, NY), the Co-Player of the Week in the BIG EAST, joined her teammates in double figures with 10.

Kublina entered the game needing just eight points to reach 1,000 for her career. She wasted little time in becoming the 15th player in the history of Tech's women's program to reach that milestone. A running left-hander to the left of the lane at the 13:17 mark of the first half secured Kublina's place in the Tech record book. She also became the fifth-fastest to reach the mark by doing it in her 82nd game.

"Yeah, my roommates reminded me," Kublina said. "It feels good, but I wasn't really thinking about it before the game. The main thing was just to win."

Providence came out attacking Tech's post and claimed an early 6-2 lead. But the Hokies answered back with strong post play of their own. Kublina and center Erin Gibson scored all of the points in a 10-0 run over the next 4:30. The Hokies never trailed again.

Fran Recchia (Flower Mound, Tex.) hit a 3-pointer with two seconds left in the half to give the Hokies their largest lead of the half going into the locker room, 35-24. The Hokies closed out the half on a 9-3 run and opened the second half with a 15-2 run. That combined 24-5 run gave the Hokies a 50-26 lead. The Friars cut the lead to 13, but never seriously challenged for the remainder of the game.

"I think where we win the game is the last two minutes of the first half and first two minutes of the second half," head coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "We had great offensive execution, put a couple of new things in that we got layups on, and Ieva's pace really set the tone offensively."

After committing over 30 turnovers in their previous game against Miami, the Hokies limited themselves to 17 in this game, while forcing the Friars into 27. The Hokies scored 33 points off of those turnovers compared to just 13 from the Friars. Tech also shot the ball well, hitting 51.8 percent (29-of-56) for the game. Providence, on the other hand, struggled from the field, converting just 36.7 percent of its shots, including a meager 28 percent in the first half.

Brooke Freeburg led the Friars with 16 points. Jessica Simmonds registered a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and Kacee Wheeler added 12, but it wasn't enough to keep Providence from dropping its fourth straight conference game.

Tech's next game will be at Seton Hall on Tuesday, Feb. 4. The game is slated for a 7 p.m. start.