Coach’s remark fires up Hoyas to rout rival

WASHINGTON, D.C — It all came down to the fourth quarter at McDonough Arena where Georgetown dominated the pace of the game to win their home opener against George Washington, 72-57.

Faith Woodward led the team with 22 points and explained how they came back after trailing behind for most of the game.

“Our energy was contagious in the fourth quarter. We were feeding off of each other,” Woodward said. “If we did have a lapse on defense, we were talking on the way back saying how we were going to correct things, and we were just really communicating out there, and it ended up winning us the game.”

Coach Adair mentioned that tonight the Hoyas had to work on their defensive end and that’s what made the difference.

“We are a defensive-minded team and so we had to hone in defensively in order to get the momentum, in order to play kind of how we wanted to play, and I think after we got stop after stop, we eased back into the way we needed to play,” Coach Adair said.

At the start of the first quarter, Georgetown was fouled and got the first point of the game. George Washington answered immediately by dribbling the ball down to get the first layup of the game making it 2-1.

Woodard responded for Georgetown and got a lead pass from Dionna White for their first layup, hyping up the momentum for the team, but that did not last long.

Brianna Cummings made the first three-pointer of the game for George Washington which increased the team’s energy. When the Colonial’s touched the ball, they were aggressive and started controlling the speed of the game.

George Washington’s Mei-Lyn Bautista made a remarkable three-pointer with 4:44 left in the first quarter causing the Hoyas to use a timeout. At this point, the Colonial was on top by 10, 15-5.

With 2:42 to go, George Washington kept a 10 point lead, 17-7.

Georgetown’s Burton made her foul shot opportunities towards the end of the quarter bringing the Hoyas within four points of George Washington, 18-14.

At the start of the second quarter, Georgetown looked like a transformed team.

The Colonial got into foul trouble, and the Hoyas took advantage of it. At 9:35 left in the quarter, White’s three-pointer set the crowd on fire.

George Washington’s Camila Tapias got fouled and went 2-2 one minute into the quarter. Hoya’s Burton responded to that and brought the score the closest it had been since the beginning of the game, 19-20.

At the 7:40 mark, Georgetown took the lead 21-20, which knocked George Washington off balance and shortly after that, the two teams were tied 21-21.

George Washington changed that after they got a boost of energy to help them take the lead back into halftime, 32-24.

In the beginning of the second half, White hit a three and Dorothy Adomako responded with another one bringing the Hoyas’ points closer to the Colonial’s.

When the score was 48-40 with George Washington still in the lead, Coach Adair gave her team a couple of words of encouragement, “I said, it’s winning time, and they just didn’t look back.”

With 5:06 to go, the final quarter became a one-point ball game, 55-54, and getting the fans pumped.

After a media timeout, Georgetown took the one point lead 56-55.

At 3:55, Burton got the momentum going for the Hoyas’ making a remarkable jumper to increase the lead by two. Adomako, the three point machine, made another with under two minutes to go.

Burton got a layup with less than a minute to go making the score 64-57, and George Washington was not able to come back.

Coach Rizzotti for the Colonial’s mentioned that they had some good opportunities late in the game, but didn’t capitalize on them and is looking forward to working on her team’s offense.

“You’re talking about a team that’s in their third year with a coach and our team which is in the first year with a whole new system and a whole new kind of philosophy about how we want to do things,” Rizzotti said. “I really want to be able to share the ball and get a lot of different shots from a lot of different people.”

George Washington was resilient and continued to be a force during the game, but it all came down to the last and final minutes. The Hoyas finished strong defeating the Colonial, 72-57.

This weekend, Georgetown will be on the road against Virginia Tech and George Washington’s next game is Sunday against Princeton.