North Carolina A&T was nine and a half minutes away from ousting James Madison, who played in the 2012 WNIT Championship game. But the Dukes (23-10) made a strong second-half push and broke a late tie, to hand the Aggies (22-10) a 77-64 loss in the opening round of the 2013 WNIT in the Convocation Center.
A&T redshirt junior Amber Calvin led the team with 25 points, and set a new career-high with seven 3-pointers. Calvin led the MEAC this season in 3-point field goal shooting. Third-team All-MEAC guard Calvin’s 25 points are the most scored by any Aggies in a WNIT game, besting her previous record of 24 points against Charlotte on March 21, 2010. But her offensive outburst wasn’t enough, as the Aggies were outscored 46-26 in the second half.
The Aggies led by as much as 56-47 with 12:29 left in the game, as Calvin’s fifth 3-pointer kept the Aggies in front. But A&T foul trouble allowed the Dukes to get back in the game. JMU went to the line for 22 shots and made 17 in the second half. Angela Mickens missed her first but got the second free throw to pull JMU within one. A layup by first-team All-CAA guard Kirby Burkholder put JMU in front, 57-56, with 9:28 left. Burkholder led the Dukes with 22 points and 14 rebounds in the contest. The two teams went scoreless over the next two minutes, trading turnovers and missed jumpers.
JMU pulled in front by three points on a jumper by Mickens, but Calvin responded by hitting another shot from downtown to tie the game at 59-59 with 6:05 left. The Dukes went on a 5-0 run to gain the upper hand. Calvin sank her seventh trey to pull A&T to within two, but the Dukes posted a 11-0 run, aided by two key steals by Mickens and 5-for-5 shooting from the free throw line to put the game out of A&T’s reach. First-team All-MEAC senior JaQuayla Berry collected a jumper as time expired to end her career with 1,433 points—sixth on the all-time career scoring list. She had 12 points in the contest.
The Aggies, who shot 45 percent in the first half, were 9-for-27 from the floor in the second half. Calvin contributed 4-for-6 from beyond the arc for A&T in the second half.
It took a couple minutes for each team to get their offenses rolling in the beginning of the game. JMU took a 4-0 lead, but then the Aggies went on a 10-0 run, taking advantage of some steals and JMU fouls to build up their lead. Sophomore Adriana Nazario, who collected a career-high 8 assists in the game, got a 3-point play to make it 13-6 with 12:39 left. The Dukes kept working to chip away at the A&T lead. A steal and layup by Jazmon Gwathmey made it 24-20 with 6:48 left. But then Calvin nailed back-to-back three pointers to put A&T in front by 12. Moments later, first-team All-CAA senior guard Tarik Hislop got jumper to make it 10-point game at 34-24, but Calvin recorded her third 3-pointer of the game to make it 37-24 with 2:02 left. The Dukes worked to close the gap and used a 5-0 run to keep the Aggies to a 38-31 halftime lead.
First year head coach Robinson said that this is just one step in the process of making the program an annual competitor in postseason national tournaments. North Carolina A&T is the only MEAC school to have made three WNIT appearances to date.
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