Virginia Tech’s Lady Hokies join Carolina inbreaking records

The North Carolina Tar Heels have been breaking a lot of records this season, but the most recent one is not one worth celebrating.

This past Sunday, the Virginia Tech Hokies challenged the number 11 ranked Tar Heels and went on to outscore them 50-47, securing their first ever victory in Chapel Hill since their first meeting in 1979. Overall, the Heels lead the series 16-4 with the Hokies’ head coach, Dennis Wolff, having never beaten a Carolina team until now.

“We’ve had a lot of close games like this. And unfortunately we hadn’t closed some of them out so today we were able to and it’s a great feeling,” said Wolff of his first win against the Tar Heels.

For many of the stars from this Sunday’s match-up, this was their first ever meeting as players for their respective schools. Vanessa Panousis, a freshman point guard from Sydney, Australia, started for the Hokies and recorded 24 points, tying her career high from just her third game of the season.

Panousis, who leads the team in three-point shooting, was able to top Carolina freshman, Allisha Gray, who was tied with Panousis for threes this season prior to the meeting. Gray is one of three starting freshmen for the Tar Heels, including fellow ACC Rookie of the Week, Stephanie Mavunga, and Naismith Award midseason top 30 listed and preseason all-ACC player, Diamond DeShields.

Mavunga, Gray, DeShields and fellow freshman point guard Jessica Washington are referred to as the “fantastic four” as they have scored 58.5% of the team’s points through the season. Against Virginia Tech, though, the four were only able to make up 48.9% of the points with Washington not contributing any points at all.

“We’re not going to use an excuse that we’re young,” said Associate Head Coach Andrew Calder of the age and maturity of his star players, adding, “We’re talented. We should’ve played better than we did.”

In the past few games, DeShields has broken UNC women’s basketball records by scoring 30 points over #3 Duke and, just six days later, scoring 38 points over #10 NC State.

Yet another six days later was different.

DeShields only contributed eight points, making just three out of fourteen field goal attempts. Gray was one for 12, only putting up five points. Mavunga was the highest scoring freshman with ten points shooting less than 50% for the night.

The night’s highest scorer was sophomore starting forward, Xylina McDaniel, a veteran for the Tar Heels, who only scored 13 points with 8 rebounds in 35 minutes on the court.

Despite her having few points and being the highest scorer for the Tar Heels, Calder was pleased with her effort, saying, “She’s a competitor. She loves to compete. She went out there and just played her game and found herself open and she created some shots for herself.”

McDaniel’s effort of 13 points is just above her season average, while Gray and DeShields were both 10 points below their averages and Mavunga was just one point short of her average. Those twenty-one points became the difference between their usual winning scoring margin of +18.7 and their 3-point loss to Virginia Tech.

Sunday’s performance was so low, that the Heels were able to break another record this season. Comparatively, they scored fewer points in the first and second half of this game than they did in two separate competitions earlier this season, holding them to their first sub-50 point game of the season.

Similarly, the Heels were held to below 50 points in the two teams’ first meeting of the 2012-2013 season when the Heels beat the Hokies 48-45. In last year’s game, the Heels only put up a slightly better field goal percentage as well as a hitting only one more three than this year’s competition.

But that one three made the difference in these two games. The Heels were one for 18 on threes, needing a three to tie the game with just 7.9 seconds left in regulation. But DeShields, who had missed all six of her 3-pt attempts, missed the shot.

Despite the loss, the Tar Heels have two more conference games before moving into the post season, giving the freshman record-breakers just a few games to perform. DeShields is 18 points behind breaking the freshman point record and Mavunga is just 10 blocks short of a thirty-season record of blocks in the season.

Assistant Coach and 2007 graduate from the Tar Heels, Ivory Latta was just the third freshman in UNC history to reach a 30-point game, soon followed by Mavunga and DeShields’ effort this season.

Of the loss, Latta said, “You’re gonna have ups and downs, you’re gonna have road blocks, but you’ve gotta find a way to get over it.”

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This article was written in compliance with the instructions of my creative sportswriting class.