VILLANOVA, PA. – The Villanova Wildcats opened up postseason play with an 86-81 overtime win over the visiting Old Dominion Monarchs in a game played at the Finneran Pavilion on Friday night. With the victory, the Wildcats improve to 19-12 on the season, while the Monarchs finished the year at 21-11.
In the win, junior forward Mary Gedaka became the 29th player in program history to score 1,000 career points. Gedaka accomplished the feat with a basket at the 4:06 mark of the fourth quarter.
Two free throws by Monarch guard Victoria Morris gave Old Dominion a 69-66 lead with 18 seconds remaining in regulation. Instead of taking a timeout to advance the ball, Villanova decided to bring the ball up and play the possession. With the clock winding down, the Wildcats moved the ball around the perimeter and found sophomore Brianna Herlihy opened on the wing. After receiving the pass, Herlihy took one double and fired a three-point field goal that found nothing but net as time expired. The Herlihy triple sent the game into overtime tied at 69-69.
After getting a defensive stop on the first possession of overtime, Villanova took the lead for the good when senior guard Adrianna Hahn scored on an uncontested lay-up. On Villanova's next overtime possession, Herlihy grabbed an offensive rebound and was fouled. Herlihy sank both foul shots to put Villanova up 73-69.
The Wildcats got a third straight defensive stop and increased their lead to 75-69 when Gedaka scored on a nice post move in the paint. Villanova closed out its 9-0 run to start the extra session when redshirt freshman Emily Esposito drained a three from the left wing to give the Wildcats a 78-69 advantage with 2:35 to play.
Old Dominion scored its first points of overtime at the 2:22 mark when Morris split a pair of free throws. Villanova then pushed the lead back to double figures at 80-70 when Herlihy connected on a short jumper.
Villanova led 83-75 with 24 seconds remaining when Morris made a deep three to pull the Monarchs within five at 83-78. Following a timeout, Villanova ran a press break play to perfection and pushed the lead back to 85-78 when Gedaka scored on an uncontested lay-up.
In the win, Esposito scored a career-high 27 points on 10-of-21 shooting, including a 7-of-14 effort from three-point range. Herlihy registered her first career double-double with a career-best 20 points and 11 rebounds. Gedaka finished with 18 points, a career-high nine assists and eight rebounds.
Old Dominion was paced by Morris with 21 points and Taylor Edwards who had 16 points.
For the game, Villanova was 28-of-66 from the field (42.4%), 15-of-37 from three-point range (40.5%) and 15-of-21 from the foul line (71.4%), while the Monarchs shot 44.1 percent from the field (30-of-68), 33.3 percent from behind the arc (7-of-21) and 77.8 percent from the charity stripe (14-of-18). Villanova owned a 42-39 advantage on the backboards.
NOTES: The Wildcats tied a season-high with 15 three-point field goals. This is the 19th time this year, including seven straight games that Villanova has made double digit threes…Villanova improves to 2-0 all-time versus ODU in the WNIT…Mary Gedaka joins her mother, Lisa Angelotti, as members of the 1,000 point club. Together the duo have combined to score 2,632 career points…Villanova improves to 11-4 at home and 2-2 in overtime games this season…Emily Esposito, Brianna Herlihy and Mary Gedaka combined to score 65 of Villanova's 86 points in tonight's victory
