George Washington University Athletics
George Washington University
7-9, 2-2 A-10
Duquesne
14-3, 4-0 A-10
GW Women's Basketball Falls in Nail-Biter to Duquesne
1/13/2018 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Box Score | Photo Gallery 1 
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WASHINGTON - With conference front-runner Duquesne in town, the George Washington women's basketball team entered play on Saturday knowing that it had little wiggle room for error in its attempt to hand the Dukes their first loss of the A-10 season. After falling behind by as many as 12 with just over five minutes remaining in the contest, the balance of the game called for near perfection from the Colonials in order to pull off the stunning comeback. Unfortunately, despite embarking on 14-2 from the 5:04 mark until it was knotted at 53-53 with :31 seconds to play, the Colonials couldn't snatch victory from the visiting Dukes in a 54-53 loss at the Charles E. Smith Center.
Staring down the dozen-point deficit with the clock ticking late, GW used a suffocating defense to find the comeback trail. Three steals by GW (one by Kelsi Mahoney; two by Mei-Lyn Bautista) in three consecutive Duquesne possessions helped erode an eight-point Duquesne lead (53-45) with 1:56 to play to the last of the game's six ties with :31 to go. It was two free throws from Brianna Cummings that tied the game, part of her game-high 18 points that included nine of GW's 14 in the closing spurt, but ironically it was at the free throw line where the Colonials missed their chance. A .797 free-throw shooting team entering play didn't get the benefit of shooters' luck as they struggled through a 9-of-18 performance at the charity stripe.
After Cummings cooly sunk the two to tie, Duquesne's Chassidy Omogrosso was the beneficiary of a whistle in the final seconds and after clanking her first free throw, she sunk the second to put Duquesne ahead one last time at 54-53 with :03 seconds on the clock. A fumbled possession on GW's last try led to an off-balance buzzer-beating try for the Colonials, but it wasn't to be as the Dukes stayed perfect at 4-0 in the conference and improved to 14-3 overall.
Bautista was everywhere for GW in the contest with a career-high 16 points on an efficient 7-of-12 field goal tries, while also flawlessly dishing five dimes against nary a turnover. As a team, GW only had six total turnovers (season-low total), while forcing 15 from Duquesne, five of which came courtesy of Bautista's five steals. Mahoney also played a critical role for GW with 10 points, five of which came in GW's closing 14-2 run as she and Cummings accounted for all of the GW points in that stretch.
It should have been expected that the game would go down to the wire as the first half provided foreshadowing of what was to come. The teams battled through four ties and six lead changes in the opening stanza, and while Duquesne led by as many as seven in the opening 20 minutes, GW's 4-0 mini-run to close the half portended second half success in a comeback attempt.
The second half game of runs saw Duquesne surge from a 32-32 tie to a 43-34 lead after an 11-2 run put the Dukes up nine with just over eight minutes to play. Julijana Vojinovic registered team-highs of 17 points and five assists for the Dukes, while also grabbing five boards. Kadri-Ann Lass joined her teammate in double figures with 10 while snaring a team-high nine rebounds. Otherwise, offense was tough to come by for the visitors as the GW defense held the A-10's top-shooting team from three-point range to 6-of-18 for the game (.333) and 19-of-49 overall (.388).
GW will now make a midweek stop in Davidson, North Carolina, to play the Wildcats on Wednesday night at 7pm before returning to the national-television stage next Sunday, Jan. 21st at noon again on CBS Sports Network. The Colonials next home game in the annual Field Trip day game at 11am on Wednesday, Jan. 24th.
