Virginia Completes Unforgettable Night With Momentous Win Over Virginia Tech
In a game that had every marking of a championship, even down to the packed crowd divided in its loyalties, the Cavaliers played like there was a championship at stake in their most important game of the season.
John Paul Jones Arena hosted a crowd of 11,975, the largest to ever attend a women's basketball game in the Commonwealth of Virginia, breaking a record that stood since 1994, when the Final Four was hosted at Richmond Coliseum. That crowd was treated to an absolute thriller, as the Hoos and Hokies traded blow after blow until Virginia (15-14, 7-11 ACC) made a few clutch plays in the final minutes to take down the No. 5-ranked and ACC regular season champions Virginia Tech (23-6, 14-4 ACC) 80-75 in an exhilarating Commonwealth Clash on Sunday night in Charlottesville.
"That was one exciting game. Thank you to the fans, especially our fans. Our fans got really loud in there, really helped us out. But even Virginia Tech's fans showing up - I think the game was just great for women's basketball," said UVA head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton after the game. "It was packed in there. It was a great atmosphere. I just love to see how much the game is growing."
These two in-state rivals gave both sides of the feverish crowd plenty to cheer for right from the jump as both Georgia Amoore and Kymora Johnson hit three-pointers in the first minute of the game. The Cavaliers threw the first punch, building a 10-4 advantage through the first four minutes. Momentum was with Virginia until two-time ACC Player of the Year Elizabeth Kitley hit a jumper plus a foul to stem the tide.
Kitley and the Hokies twice got it back within a point, but Johnson responded both times, coming up with a steal and score and then a three-pointer on the next possession. Alexia Smith followed that up with a transition bucket to give Virginia a 17-11 lead, but Virginia Tech ended the period on a 5-0 run to cut it back to 17-16 at the end of the first quarter.
Virginia Tech's run continued in the second quarter as Kitley hit a pair of jumpers sandwiched around a step-back three from Amoore and the Hokies ultimately scored 12 points in a row to take a 23-17 lead. This time it was UVA's turn to make a play to swing the momentum and Paris Clark did just that with a tough and-one. That sparked a 7-0 run for Virginia as the Hokies went more than three minutes without scoring until Amoore connected on her third three-pointer of the game.
Clark answered with a three of her own that barely beat the shot clock buzzer, one of many sequences in the game in which the two fanbases took turns erupting inside JPJ. UVA scored the last five points of the half, including an and-one for Camryn Taylor, and outscored Virginia Tech 17-13 in the second to grab a 34-29 lead at halftime.
Paris Clark scored eight points in the second quarter to join Taylor and Johnson with eight points apiece at the half. Kitley scored seven more in the second and Amoore had six, but no other Hokies scored in the period. Kitley and Amoore combined to score 24 of Virginia Tech's 29 points in the first half. The Hokies outrebounded the Cavaliers 24-18 in the first half, but UVA outscored Virginia Tech in the paint 14-6 and had 12 second-chance points.
The two teams traded baskets early in the third, with Kitley scoring on back-to-back possessions to reach 20 points less than two minutes into the second half. But on the second basket, a breakaway layup that she finished plus a foul on some slight contact from Taylor Lauterbach, Kitley landed awkwardly and crashed to the floor, where she remained for some time holding her knee. Kitley eventually walked off the floor to the locker room and later came back to the bench, but never returned to the game.
Without their legendary center, the Hokies played inspired basketball, especially Georgia Amoore, who made up the slack with a staggering 29 points in the second half alone. Behind 13 third-quarter points from Amoore, Virginia Tech went back in front.
Camryn Taylor and Sam Brunelle both had three personal fouls at this point in the game, but Coach Mox displayed some trust in her senior leaders and kept them in the game. Brunelle assisted Taylor on a layup and then Taylor made a couple of free throws to help the Cavaliers regain the lead and head to the fourth quarter leading 56-54.
The back-and-forth nature of the game persisted through the fourth quarter, with the two teams trading blows and playing hot potato with the lead, while the split crowd went into a frenzy with seemingly every play, trying desperately to push their teams to the finish line.
"It's just amazing for the sport of women's basketball," said Kymora Johnson of the atmosphere at John Paul Jones Arena. "That's what I came to do, especially, was to get this place back on the map."
Georgia Amoore and Kymora Johnson went head-to-head again, with Amoore hitting a couple of threes to give Virginia Tech the lead, but Johnson responded by scoring the next four points to take it right back. A Johnson triple put UVA ahead by three and a Camryn Taylor big-time and-one later pushed the Cavalier lead to 71-67, but Amoore again got open for a three, her fifth of the second half and eighth triple of the game, to get it back down to one.
Amoore's ninth three-pointer was wiped away on an illegal screen, but the Hokies still tied the game at 72-72 with a layup by Carleigh Wenzel, making it a brand-new game with less than two minutes to go.
At that moment, the game was teetering on the edge and ready to be claimed by either team, a situation that simply had to favor the Hokies, who were the older and more experienced team, who had returned the bulk of a roster that went to the Final Four last season, and who had already wrapped up the ACC regular season title and the No. 1 seed in next week's ACC Tournament. How could the Cavaliers - who are still relatively young and inexperienced, a trait that applies even to their veterans, as this team is still less than two years removed from the coaching change that brought Coach Mox to Charlottesville - how could they hope to outplay these Hokies with the game on the line?
But just as they didn't falter at any of the other moments in the game when Virginia Tech made a run, shifted momentum, took the lead, and felt the roar of the thousands of maroon-clad Hokie fans who made the two-hour drive from Blacksburg, the Cavaliers didn't blink when the game was on the line.
Rather than letting the proven Hokies come into their gym and walk away with what would have been a third-straight season sweep of the Commonwealth Clash, the Hoos simply said, "not this time."
This time, Virginia came through with the clutch, game-winning plays. First, it was a London Clarkson reverse layup that gave the Cavaliers the lead for good. That was followed by another big-time play from Kymora Johnson, who proved once again that no moment is too big for her even as a freshman, stepping in between a screen to poke the ball away and racing down the court for a layup to give UVA a four-point lead.
Paris Clark made a couple of free throws to push it to six and then, after Amoore converted an and-one and Virginia missed its next four free throws to make things interesting, it was another Virginia native Sam Brunelle, playing likely her final game at JPJ, who salted the game away with two free throws to secure UVA's 80-75 victory.
"Very very proud of our players and our fight today. We fought for 40 minutes," said Coach Mox. "We just wanted it. We knew that we were trying to play our way into postseason and have momentum going into the conference tournament. Just really proud of our fight."
Kymora Johnson had 21 points and eight assists, scoring or assisting on 16 of Virginia's 26 made baskets in the game. Camryn Taylor had 17 points and seven rebounds and Paris Clark had 16 points, six rebounds, and four assists.
And so, on a night that UVA honored a five-member senior class - Sam Brunelle, London Clarkson, Taylor Lauterbach, Kaydan Lawson, and Camryn Taylor - and welcomed in a crowd that broke an attendance record that had stood in the state of Virginia for 30 years, the Cavaliers offered real, tangible proof of the progress that has been made in two years of the Coach Mox era of Virginia women's basketball.
“They mean a lot to this program,” Coach Mox said of the senior class. "And that’s the legacy that you want to leave, and that’s what we talk about all the time: You’re gonna be forever remembered for turning this program back around.”
But these seniors and this team are not done yet. With a fourth top 25 win, the first time the Cavaliers have done that since the 2008-2009 season, and the first top five victory since 2017, there is a slim, but not impossible path Virginia can take to reaching would be the program's first NCAA Tournament berth since 2018. It will require more complete performances from UVA this week at the ACC Tournament.
That postseason journey will begin on Wednesday at 6:30pm, when Virginia, who is the No. 11 seed in the bracket, will take on No. 14 seed Wake Forest in the first round of the 2024 ACC Women's Basketball Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum. The winner will take on No. 6 seed Florida State on Thursday in the second round.
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