JMU Avenges with 73-56 Win Over Drexel

February 9, 2010 • By Emmie Cleveland,
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HARRISONGBURG — The last time the Drexel Dragons visited Harrisonburg, they beat the JMU women’s basketball team in the conference championship.

“It’s easy for someone to say, ‘Well, you know, that’s in the past; we’re not supposed to think about it,’ ” junior guard Dawn Evans. “But championship tournament or not, this is our home floor, and we take pride in protecting our home court.”

When Drexel returned to the Convo on Monday night, it suffered a 73-56 loss to JMU.

Drexel took the lead early, with the first basket. JMU answered with five, and Drexel never took the lead again.

“They don’t make very many mistakes. But I thought tonight we ran our stuff. We got the shots we wanted to get, we got them when we wanted to get them.”

Evans led all scorers with 31 points, her 15th career game with 30 or more points. With a sprained ankle, Evans wasn’t sure she was going to play in the game until shooting around before the game.

“I made her pinky-promise me that she would be honest with me,” JMU coach Kenny Brooks said. “When you have three daughters, you have to pinky promise a lot. So I made her pinky promise with me that she was going to be honest and let me know how she felt, so therefore we can get her in and out of the game and get her some rest.”

Evans played 33 minutes and said her ankle didn’t bother her much while she was playing. Evans was 7-for-10 behind the 3-point arc.

“They’re going to shots off, especially Dawn,” Drexel head coach Denise Dillon said “She’s their go-to. She’s going to look for the ball when they’re in trouble. She’s going to look to take the deep shot or take it to the basket.”

In competition with Evans, was CAA preseason player of the year Gabriela Marginean. The senior was held to 14 points, being defended well by JMU’s freshman Nikki Newman.

“We really emphasized that you had to play fundamental defense, because they have all kinds of crazy back-door cuts and this and that and she got me a few times, but I just wanted to go out and make a point I guess and help pick up my team in a way,” Newman said.

At the break, JMU was up 33-26, but over the first 10 minutes of the half, Drexel cut the lead to two at 46-44 and then again with eight minutes remaining at 50-48.

“We knew Drexel was going to come out extremely strong,” Evans said. “There a team that won’t quit. And so that’s exactly what they did. They came out and they were just trying to do everything they could to get back into the game.”

An Evans’ 3-pointer started at 23-8 run for JMU, clinching the win. Brooks accredited the lapse to his team temporarily losing focus.

“It’s a good thing that microphone wasn’t in my huddle, because it was a lack of focus,” Brooks said. “… Right before we broke the huddle to go out there before they went on a run we said focus. Against a team like Drexel, if you lose focus for one second, they’re really good at taking advantage of it.”

With the win, JMU improves to 8-3 in CAA (18-4 overall). The Dukes travel to William & Mary on Thursday to continue conference play.

Contact Emmie Cleveland at breezesports@gmail.com

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