November 24, 2001

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The Virginia Tech women's basketball team connected on its first ten shots from the field and never looked back in crushing Northwestern State 71-46 in the first round of the www.womenscollegehoops.com Crawfish Classic hosted Louisiana State University. The Hokies will face 19th-ranked LSU in Sunday's championship contest at 3 p.m. eastern. The Tigers defeated Tennessee-Martin 95-47 in Saturday's first game.

The Hokies (3-0) came out firing on all cylinders against the Lady Demons to build an early 22-6 lead which included an 11-0 run. Senior Sarah Hicks (Roanoke, Va.) keyed the quick start scoring eight points, including two treys in the run. The Hokies built the lead to as many as 19 points in the opening stanza before settling for a 34-17 halftime advantage.

Tech removed any doubt about the outcome with a 20-0 run in early stages of the second half to build a 51-21 advantage with 12:22 remaining in the game. The Hokies shot 50 percent (26-52) from the field for the game and outrebounded the Lady Demons 43-25. Tech also connected on 16-20 free throws and held Northwestern State to only 32.7 percent from the field.

Tech was led by junior Chrystal Starling (Syracuse, N.Y.) with 17 points while Hicks and freshman Rayna Dubose (Columbia, Md.) added 10 points each. Tweleve of the 13 Hokies who dressed for the game scored with freshmen Fran Recchia (Flower Mound, Tex.), Kacy O'Brien (Pittsburgh, Pa.) and DuBose each scoring the first points of their collegiate careers.

Northwestern State (0-1) was led by LaTerrica Dobin with 10 points. The three wins to open the season matches Tech's best start under head coach Bonnie Henrickson which was set last season.