VILLANOVA, PA. – The Villanova Wildcats gave a valiant effort, but came up a little short in tonight's 56-52 loss to the James Madison Dukes. With the setback, the Wildcats fall to 0-2 on the year, while James Madison improves to 2-0 on the young season.
James Madison dominated the early going racing to a 17-3 lead. Duke senior guard Kamiah Smalls led the early charge with seven points. The Wildcats finished the quarter on an 8-3 run to pull within nine at 20-11 at the end of the first quarter.
Villanova used a 10-5 run over the first seven minutes of the second quarter to cut the Duke advantage to 25-21. Senior forward Bridget Herlihy led the way for Villanova scoring eight of the 10 points on a three-ball, two lay-ups and a free throw. Trailing 31-23 with two seconds to play in the opening half, Wildcat senior forward Mary Gedaka made two free throws to make it a 31-25 James Madison lead at intermission.
James Madison led 40-35 at the 3:37 mark of the third quarter, when Wildcat redshirt freshman Madison Siegrist drained a three to make it a 40-38 game. After Smalls made one-of-two from the foul line to put her team up 41-38, Siegrist connected on another triple to even the game at 41-41 with 2:16 left in the third quarter. Siegrist would finish the third quarter scoring when she drained a 30-foot three at the third quarter buzzer to give Villanova a 44-41 lead.
The Wildcats went scoreless for the first 7:38 of the fourth quarter as James Madison opened up a 48-44 advantage. Gedaka ended the Wildcat scoreless stretch when she made two foul shots with 2:22 to play. The free throws pulled Villanova within two at 48-46. Following Gedaka's two points, the Dukes scored the next three points to increase their lead to 51-46.
A three-ball by Siegrist made it a one possession game and cut the James Madison lead to 53-50 with 40 seconds on the clock. James Madison ran the shot clock down and isolated Smalls who drove to the basket and was fouled. Smalls made the first and missed the second. However, James Madison's Lexie Barrier was ableto get the offensive rebound and pass the ball to Smalls who was fouled with eight seconds remaining. Smalls put the game away by sinking both free throws.
In the loss, Gedaka led the Wildcats with 16 points, while Siegrist finished with 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting, including a 4-of-8 effort from three. Bridget Herlihy tallied 10 points and seven rebounds, while junior guard Cameron Onken pulled-down a team-high eight rebounds.
James Madison was paced by Smalls with a game-high 22 points and Barrier who had 20 points and seven rebounds. Kayla Cooper-Williams tallied a game-best 10 rebounds.
For the game, Villanova was 17-of-56 from the field (30.4%), 8-of-34 from three (23.5%) and 10-of-17 from the foul line (58.8%), while the Dukes shot 31.0 percent from the floor (18-of-58), 15.4 percent from behind the arc (2-of-13) and 66.7 percent from the charity stripe (18-of-27). The Dukes owned a 46-37 advantage on the backboards.
Villanova returns to action on Thursday, Nov. 14, with a road game at American. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.
