November 17, 2000

The Virginia Tech women's basketball team collected its first official victory of the season on Friday when they took down the Liberty Flames, 72-51.

The Flames hung tough for the first 20 minutes and trailed just 31-27 at the half. But the Hokies opened up the second half with a 21-2 run that essentially put the game out of reach.

Tere Williams led the way for Tech by dropping in 17 points and pulling down 8 rebounds, six of which were offensive. She also contributed 10 points in the pivotal second-half run.

But Williams had a tough time dealing with Liberty's height advantage in the first half, shooting just 2-of-11 from the floor. In the second half, she made some adjustments and sparked the offense.

"This game definitely helped me because they will get bigger and broader," Williams said. "I'm gonna have to get in the gym before practice and start shooting around."

Liberty may have been able to compete with Tech longer if they had utilized their height on the glass and taken better care of the ball. Tech held a 40-29 rebounding edge and forced the Flames into 31 turnovers.

"Defensively we did a nice job," head coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "For about 32 or 33 minutes I thought we controlled the tempo and created some chaos out there."

Tech won by 21 despite getting only two points out of senior scoring machine Amy Wetzel. All eleven players on Henrickson's roster played at least eleven minutes in the contest and everyone scored at least one basket. Freshman Davina Simmons, the last to come off of the bench, put together a nice debut with 8 points and 5 rebounds in just 16 minutes of action.

"I have said all along that I have a quality eleven and any given night I can go that deep," Henrickson said. "I feel like I can do that (go to the bench) earlier than I was ever able to last year."

Tech next takes to the hardwood on Tuesday night at the Cassell versus James Madison University.