The long road trip to South Bend didn’t end happily for the Hokies, a rough 3rd quarter stall flipped a promising game to a road loss, and then their face-off against NC State in Cassell ran into a post and a 2nd quarter blender that ended the game by the half.
The coaching staff and players have some serious things to fix after the last weekend outing. Thursday’s trip to South Bend started out promising, but the “Third Quarter Rule” proved a double-edged sword. A chance for some recovery and a critical Quad 1 win against on-court rival North Carolina State, at home in Cassell Coliseum, ended in a 2nd quarter disaster that made that “Third Quarter Rule” pretty moot.
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It looks like there will need to be some “bucking up” and some real fixes put into place to salvage a place on the good side of the bubble for the NCAA tournament. These two losses were neither at a good time, nor with an excusable outcome.
Finding Balance and Consistency
We aren’t going to go into the bloody details of the last two games but there are some very different aspects of the games that have one common problem that has chased the team through both phases of the 2025-2026 season and that is finding both balance and consistency.
At Notre Dame February 5th – Loss – 70-80
The Notre Dame loss was characterized by a disaster of a 3rd quarter after having had a blowout first quarter and a par 2nd. The Lady Irish aren’t having the best of seasons this time. They were slightly behind Tech in the ACC standings and even with their big star Hanna Hidalgo, they haven’t been running away with things. Actually, for most of the game, this was true. Tech and, in particular, Carleigh Wenzel dominated the scoring in the 1st quarter scoring. Against a peer team a 7-point lead coming out of the first was a solid performance and though not comfortable, was definitely something to build on.
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That didn’t happen in the 2nd quarter. Carys Baker was the only other Tech player (she actually led the team in scoring at 21 points) to consistently connect. The remainder of the team behind Carleigh and Carys, struggled to connect and eventually the Notre Dame pressure slowed Tech’s scoring to narrow the lead at the half to 6 points. After the 1st, the Lady Hokies didn’t win a quarter. The Irish just kept up the pressure, and the lid boiled off in the 3rd.
The scoring reality was that Tech was never completely out of the game and even managed to inch ahead by 2 points at the 4-minute mark of the 4th quarter, 68-68. But as the final score shows, Tech would only manage two points in those final minutes of the game. That was a layup by Kilah Freelon, with 46 ticks on the clock, after an 8-0 run by the Irish.
Tech truly had a chance in this one and even managed to recover from the 10-point differential disaster of the 3rd period, but they just could not overcome their continual shooting dry spell problems.
Significant Stats for Notre Dame
Carys Baker led the furious comeback attempt in the 3rd with repeated hits from downtown, but Tech needed more players to connect, and eventually Carys ran out of gas in the 4th. She ended the game, as mentioned with 21 points including a blistering 5-9 from downtown. She also had 7 rebounds with block and a steal on defense.
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Carleigh Wenzel had a sterling first quarter but cooled off as the game progressed. She ended the game with 19 total points and 7 rebounds.
Kilah Freelon and Samyha Suffren ended with 9 points and 8 points respectively. Suffren did pull down 9 boards, Kilah is beginning to learn to dominate the post and pulled in 13 rebounds 6 of which were critical offensive boards. If she’d just hit a putback or two she’d have double-doubled for this one.
In the end, the 10-point differential was largely the result of the end-game foul activity that seems to rarely work, especially for the women’s game. It was disappointing but much closer than the end score looked.
At Home NC State – February 8th – Loss – 62-82
This one was not predicted to be an easy contest. NC State is tough regardless of the venue. Some of the best and most exciting moments over the last few seasons have been against the Lady Wolf Pack. The first quarter ended in a 19-19 tie, and it looked like it was going to be another exciting close fought contest in Cassell for the game.
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Then disaster struck, hard. We are again reminded of those two critical elements that the Lady Hokies have been struggling to overcome this season: Balance and Consistency.
The “B and C Wagon” lost all of its wheels in the 2nd quarter for the Lady Hokies. Tech only managed 8 points in the quarter on 3 jumpers and a layup. Meanwhile NC State was piling up the points on spoiled exchanges. The quarter would end with NC State putting up a 25-8 effort, and the Hokies, though improving their scoring, could never overcome the halftime differential. The reality of the “Third Quarter Rule” is that sometimes it doesn’t need to apply. This time was one of those.
The final horn for the game was actually sort of a merciful end to a 20-point drubbing at home. This was a game that the coaches and players ultimately have to put into the memory hole and move on. There were some real bright spots, though.
Significant Stats for NC State
Kilah Freelon – We mentioned Kilah for the Notre Dame game, and even Coach Duffy highlighted her effort on the radio show on Monday. Freelon, despite the loss, double-doubled. Not only did she score 14 points, she pulled down an astounding 18 rebounds with an even distribution of 9 ORBs and 9 DRBs. She also had 2 blocked shots and 2 steals on defense to go with those rebounds.
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Carleigh Wenzel – Carleigh led the team with 22 points. She also had 3 assists and 2 rebounds.
Carys Baker scored 8, and Mackie Nelson 6. Sophie Swanson made good use of her minutes by contributing 5 points.
Off to California
The team is currently in the Bay Area preparing to take on Stanford this evening, and then Cal Berkley on the 15th. It’s an opportunity to get two good quality road wins back and set the stage for the final weeks of the regular season.
