Virginia Tech Women's Basketball Rallies Late for 71-68 Victory Over Clemson

Virginia Tech trailed by eight with 2:24 to play but scored 11 uninterrupted points to claim a come-from-behind victory Thursday.

Virginia Tech Athletics

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Games, seasons and legacies can be formed in the span of seconds. Though the last of the three designators wasn't shifted on Thursday, the former two may have been. Virginia Tech women's basketball trailed 68-60 to Clemson with 2:23 to play, yet rallied, rolling up 11 straight points in the final 144 seconds of the game to seize a 71-68 come-from-behind victory.

JUST WIN, BABY! LGH! 🦃 pic.twitter.com/7UiUbXaENZ

— Virginia Tech Women's Basketball (@HokiesWBB) January 23, 2026

With the victory, Virginia Tech (15-5, 5-3 ACC) claims not just its fourth straight victory but also moves into No. 6 in the ACC standings, now only behind Louisville, Duke, Syracuse, Virginia and NC State.

The Hokies previously lost to the Cardinals (85-60) and Blue Devils (70-54), while taking down the Orange (77-57). Virginia Tech has not contested either the Cavaliers or the Wolfpack. The Hokies will play Virginia on Sunday, Feb. 1 and NC State on Sunday, Feb. 8; both contests will take place at home.

The effort was spearheaded by forward Carys Baker and guard Carleigh Wenzel. Both notched a season-high 24 points and took over as the game neared its zenith.

"I know me and Carys had a moment where we just came together and said, 'We need to lock in and we need to take over,'" Wenzel said. "I think we did just that on both ends of the ball. I know there were a couple times where it just shot out pretty far on their end. It came right back into their hands. But just not giving up on the play and continuing to keep things going on our end. Not just giving them easy buckets off their offensive rebounds."

After a three-game span where Tech throttled its opponents by a combined 79 points, the Hokies came out OK but unremarkable in the first quarter against Clemson (13-7, 4-4 ACC). Virginia Tech nearly doubled the Tigers' shot output in the opening frame, taking 14 shots from the field to Clemson's eight. However, the Tigers only made one fewer shot from the field and only trailed by four entering the second half.

Clemson pulled ahead in the second quarter, via a 26-16 stretch over 10 minutes of play. Virginia Tech struggled both from the field and from long-range, converting on four of its 14 looks from the field and one of its six tries from deep. Though Virginia Tech outshot Clemson, 28-21, the Tigers took advantage of the shots they did receive, knocking down 14 of their 21 shots for a 66.7% clip.

Virginia Tech eventually adjusted accordingly, but it wasn't for another quarter; Clemson outscored the Hokies, 20-16, in the third-quarter to take a 59-49 lead entering the final fame of regulation. In that quarter, the Tigers flipped the game's shot quantity numbers on its head, taking 18 shots to Virginia Tech's nine.

But in the fourth and final quarter, the Hokies finally seized control — though it took time. For the first 7:36 of the quarter, the two teams were relatively deadlocked, with Virginia Tech holding a slight 11-9 final-quarter advantage. Still, Clemson led 68-60 with 144 seconds to play, and possessed a 97.8% win probability on ESPN. But over the next two minutes and 23 seconds of game time, the Hokies mounted a paramount comeback, one that could be vital to their March Madness hopes down the line.

First, Wenzel knocked down a pai of free throws to slice the gap to six. Then, 15 seconds of game time later, Baker drew a foul and did the same to cut the deficit to four.

With just under 90 seconds left, Wenzel was forced out to the baseline, but zipped a pass to guard Samyha Suffren in the corner. Suffren's wide-open trey was nothing but net, cutting Clemson's advantage down to just one.

"It broke down a little bit, and that's where we always talk about how you've got your base action you're trying to do and then, you've got to play out of things," Duffy said. "We made a great, great pass across the baseline and Samyha was wide open. No hesitation, shot it. I was just so proud of her because she had some up-and-down moments through the game. But no bigger than a few of her steals and that big three. Just a phenomenal execution out of the back end of a play."

They weren't done, though. With 11 seconds to play, Wenzel found Baker open about six feet away from the basket; the junior forward cashed in the go-ahead bucket to lift Tech up to a 69-68 lead. Wenzel remarked that the play was one that "was there the whole game".

"We knew what we were going to get into," Wenzel said. "I told Carys, I said, 'Hey, I'm driving baseline.' I said, 'So, I cut, go get it.' ... I didn't think it was going to be that on the money. I thought we were going to have to make some reads out of it.

"But we talked about it, we knew that's exactly what we were kind of going to go for, because that's what was there the whole game. And I trusted her at the end. I know she trusted me. So, whatever way it went, that's what we kind of went with and it went in our favor."

Virginia Tech claimed the victory despite being in serious foul trouble; down the stretch, it ran a combined five-woman lineup of forward Kilah Freelon, Wenzel, guard Mackenzie Nelson, Baker and Suffren. That lineup had a combined 16 fouls at game's end, with every player but Wenzel sporting four fouls and being on the verge of fouling out.

The Hokies also claimed a 28-8 advantage in points off turnovers, though Duffy credited that gap to timely baskets rather than being a main strength of the team.

"I don't know if we were great in transition," Duffy said. "I thought we had timely baskets in transition. I thought we created some turnovers that helped late in the game. I thought both teams had some uncharacteristic turnovers. I mean, dead-ball turnovers, the illegal screens were kind of all sprinkled out throughout the game.

"So, when you look back, it wasn't a lot of flow on either side with some of that. But, I think the good thing was that we got into the bonus pretty early and made some free throws. I thought our team was very good when we did turn it over. We were pretty positive about it and got to the next play pretty quickly, especially late."

Clemson entered the contest ranked No. 41 in the NET rankings, making Tech's victory over the Tigers critical for its NCAA Tournament hopes.

Virginia Tech's next contest comes against Wake Forest on Sunday, Jan. 25 at 2 p.m. ET in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The contest will be streamed on ACC Network Extra.

The Demon Deacons rank No. 116 in the NET at the time of writing with a 0-7 record against teams in Quad 1, 2 or 3. Virginia Tech, by comparison, is a combined 3-5 against such foes.