HARRISONBURG — There just something about UNC Wilmington that causes James Madison’s women’s basketball team problems, yet even so, JMU remains perfect at home.
A month after handing the Dukes their only loss of the Colonial Athletic Association season in Wilmington, the Seahawks visited JMU without their leading scorer, Shrita Parker, aund still took the league leaders to the wire before JMU pulled out a 58-51 victory.
Kamiah Smalls scored a game-high 24 points, including five free throws to ice it in the final 30 seconds, to lead the Dukes (20-4, 12-1 CAA) to their 25th straight victory at the Convocation Center.
“It's a good win, not a pretty win,” JMU coach Sean O'Regan said. “I thought Wilmington out-toughed us in the first half. But I thought our team was pretty good down the stretch and that's a good sign going forward.”
Drexel may be the team right behind JMU atop the CAA standings, but Madison easily handled the Dragons on the road the first week of league play. Instead it’s UNCW (15-9, 8-5), now three games behind the Dukes, who have caused JMU matchup problems, and may or may not have gotten into the Dukes’ heads at times.
“I think every time we have seen UNCW, JMU hasn't played its best basketball,” Smalls said. “We are going up against a good team and if we let them hang with us, then of course we have a ballgame. It is always about JMU basketball, and since we've seen them we haven't given them our best shot yet.”
Even without Parker, who was named the national player of the week after her last-second game-winner sunk JMU in the first meeting, the Seahawks went toe-to-toe with the team that has dominated the rest of the CAA. While JMU was missing enough point-blank shots to have built a comfortable lead, UNCW got big games from Lacey Suggs and Gigi Smith and answered every JMU surge heading into the final minutes.
Suggs scored a team-high 14 points with four rebounds before fouling out late, while Smith added 12 for the Seahawks, who led for 22 minutes of the game before the Dukes rallied late in front of a fired-up crowd of 2,453.
“We’re not happy we didn’t come out with a win, but they gave everything they had and then some,” UNCW coach Karen Barefoot said. “This team continues to step up and play so hard. I thought they executed the game plan to the T.”
After a quick 5-0 spurt to start the game, the Dukes got a reminder how UNCW gave them so much trouble a month earlier down in Wilmington. Despite getting some good looks at the basket, JMU went close to six minutes without a bucket. Even an 8-0 run late in the first quarter wasn’t enough to keep the Seahawks from claiming a 14-13 lead after one period.
UNCW continued to give the Dukes fits on the defensive end and got just enough going with the ball to hang onto the lead the entire second quarter. But Kamiah Smalls nailed a shot-clock beating 3-pointer late in the half to wake up the Convocation Center crowd and give the Dukes some momentum as they went to the locker room trailing 27-25.
Madison came out looking better offensively to start the second half, and opened up an early four-point lead. But unlike every other CAA opponent who visited the Convo this season, the Seahawks never wilted and battled back to take a 41-39 lead into the fourth.
But Smalls took over for the Dukes down the stretch and with the ball in her hands, JMU was able to get a lead and close out one that was closer than normal, but the end result Madison has come to expect on its home floor.
“When Kamiah gets in that mode, she's pretty much unstoppable,” O'Regan said. “She cares as much as anybody about game-winning plays. She's not out here just jacking shots because she's chasing player of the year trophies. She wants to win the game first and foremost.”
