Hokie Women Fall To B.C.

AP Wires
Published: March 7, 2008

Expectations weren’t very high for Boston College in the Atlantic Coast Conference this season.
    But the Eagles had other plans, and they took a big step toward
one of their goals by beating Virginia Tech 57-47 on Thursday in
the opening round of the ACC tournament.
    Stefanie Murphy scored 14 points to lead four players in double
figures for seventh-seeded Boston College (20-10), which won its
first tournament game since joining the league three years ago.
    “This means a lot,“ said Boston College coach Cathy Inglese,
whose team was picked to finish 11th in the 12-team league in the
preseason media poll. “I knew we had some potential with our
freshmen ... but there were still some unanswered questions. But I
felt potentially we could have a solid season.“
    Carolyn Swords added 12 points, Ayla Brown had 11 and Brittany
Johnson 10 for the Eagles, who now face No. 5 Maryland, the
tournament’s No. 2 seed, in a quarterfinal game Friday at the
Greensboro Coliseum.
    “We knew that we weren’t going to be 11th at the end of the
season,“ said Murphy, one of six freshmen on the Boston College
roster. “That made us work that much harder day in and day out to
prove it to everybody.
    Andrea Barbour had 13 points and Brittany Cook 10 for the
10th-seeded Hokies (15-15), who trailed by as many as 18 points in
the second half in losing their first opening-round game in three
years.
    Virginia Tech struggled to find the range and its grip on the
ball in the first half. The Hokies shot just 25 percent from the
field and turned the ball over 10 times as Boston College led by as
many as 13 points.
    “It was obvious that we had such a struggle offensively in the
first half,“ Virginia Tech coach Beth Dunkenberger said. “Some of
that stemmed from our lack of intensity on the defensive end. We
really didn’t force the tempo at all and got away from our game
plan. We had a little bit of a run in the second half, but not
enough to overcome that really slow first half.“
    Brown scored nine of the game’s first 13 points to open an 11-2
Eagles lead after three minutes, and Brittany Johnson’s runner in
the lane with 5:12 remaining put Boston College up 21-8.
    The Hokies mounted a rally late in the half, with Lindsay Biggs’
3-pointer cutting the Eagles’ lead to 23-15 with 2:01 left.
However, Murphy dropped in back-to-back layups, the last with 3
seconds remaining, to put Boston College ahead 27-15 at halftime.
    The Eagles took their biggest lead of the game late in the
second half, with Johnson hitting a 3-pointer with 4:53 remaining
to put Boston College up 54-36.