No. 4 William & Mary Defeats No. 12 Hofstra to Advance to First CAA Semifinal Since 2017
Hunter Peters
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TOWSON, Md. (March 10, 2023) – Fourth-seeded William & Mary shook off a slow start offensively and battled past 12
th-seeded Hofstra, 74-64, in the quarterfinals of the CAA Women’s Basketball Championship presented by Primis on Friday afternoon at SECU Arena.
The Tribe (18-12) advanced to the semifinals for the first time since 2017, where they will face top-seeded Towson at 2 p.m. on Saturday. Hofstra, which became the first No. 12 seed since 2006 to reach the quarterfinals, dropped to 12-20.
Guard Sydney Wagner scored a team-high 20 points and backcourt mate Riley Casey tallied 19 points to lead William & Mary. For Hofstra, guard Brandy Thomas recorded a double-double with game-highs of 23 points and 14 rebounds and Sorelle Ineza contributed 17 points.
W&M started 4-of-25 from the floor and missed its first 12 attempts from 3-point range before finding its rhythm late in the second quarter. From that point, the Tribe shot 51.3% overall, including 8-of-15 (53.3%) from beyond the arc.
Hofstra trailed 4-2 early, but limited W&M to just one field goal over the final 7:27 of the quarter to grab a 15-7 lead. Ineza had six points in the period and Emma Von Essen drilled a three in the final minute that put the Pride up by eight.
Hofstra still led by six with under three minutes left in the half when the Tribe got rolling. W&M made four of its final five shots from the floor and closed the second period on an 11-0 run to take a 26-21 advantage into the break. Casey had five points in the late surge and tallied a team-best 11 points in the half.
W&M’s hot shooting from long range continued in the third quarter as it hit 5-of-6 threes and steadily expanded the lead. Back-to-back treys from Kayla Rolph and Wagner put the Tribe up 47-33 with 4:08 to go in the period and a 3-pointer by Casey pushed the margin to 16 (52-36) with just under three minutes on the clock. The Tribe tallied 28 points in the quarter, which was the second-highest total in CAA Tournament history.
Behind the play of Thomas, who scored all 23 of her points in the second half, Hofstra fought back. A layup by the Pride’s Zyheima Swint cut the deficit to seven (63-56) with 3:40 to go. However, W&M freshman Alexa Mikeska followed with her only 3-pointer of the game to take the lead back to double digits and the Tribe maintained at least an eight-point cushion the rest of the way.
W&M, which was outrebounded by an average of 6.7 per game during the regular season, had a 43-32 advantage on the glass against the Pride.
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