November 21, 2000

The Virginia Tech women's basketball team needed nearly all 40 minutes to subdue the James Madison Dukes on Nov. 21 in front of 1,572 at Cassell Coliseum. The final score was 78-60.

Tech jumped out to an 11-2 lead and never relinquished it. However, the margin of victory was its largest lead of the game and the women had their lead sliced as low as seven with 6:00 remaining in the game.

Senior guard Amy Wetzel paced the Hokies with 18 points and six assists. But it was a total team effort to dispose of JMU as five Hokies besides Wetzel scored eight points or more.

"I was totally into the game and I didn't second-guess when I had an open shot, I just took the shot," Wetzel said. "I thought I was a little passive in the Liberty game and thought about everything I did."

It was also a record-setting night for the Hokies, specifically Wetzel and senior forward Tere Williams. Wetzel moved into sixth place on the career scoring list, passing Susan Walvius with her 1,162nd point. She also captured sole possession of seventh place on the Tech assists list when she dished out the 317th of her career. Wetzel achieved both of those milestones early in the first half.

Then in the second half, Wetzel moved past Sarah Hillyer for seventh place on Tech's career 3-pointers list when she knocked down the 54th of her career.

"That's a credit to her work ethic and her commitment to this program since she got here," head coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "And she's smart enough to know she needs to thank her teammates, because opportunities for her to play as many games and be surrounded with the players that she's had have put her in that situation."

Tere Williams got into the record-setting act when she unseated Lisa Leftwich for eighth place on the career free throws made list. The free throw that bumped her up was her 265th successful conversion as a Hokie and came at the 2:01 mark of the first half. She later nabbed seventh place from Christi Osborne with free throw number 268 at the 1:43 mark of the second half.

Freshman Ieva Kublina had a solid performance, scoring nine points, all in the second half, collecting six rebounds and blocking two shots. Chrystal Starling, who saw some time at the point when Emily Lipton got into foul trouble, finished with eight points and eight rebounds.

Tech takes to the road for the first time on Nov. 24 when they travel to the Tallahassee Democrat Classic tournament in Tallahassee. Other teams involved in the tournament will be Michigan State, Chicago State and Florida State.