CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Propelled by guards Dawn Staley and Tammi Reiss, who keyed a second-half run, 12th-ranked Virginia rolled over the women's basketball team, 85-64, yesterday in University Hall.
Staley had a season-high 32 points and Reiss hit for a career-high 25 as the two guards accounted for 57 Virginia points. No other Lady Cavaliers scored in double figures.
"We didn't think that we needed career highs to win," Reiss said. "As a team, we just go out and play."
Up by only five at halftime, 40-35, Virginia used an 11-0 spurt beginning at the 12:39 mark, when Staley put in an easy lay-up, to put the game out of reach. It ended when Reiss converted a 3-point play after guard Jen Kretchmar fouled her on a layup. In between, Staley hit a jumper and Reiss hit four consecutive shots, including the three-point play.
Virginia now led, 63-48, and Penn State could not recover as the Lady Cavaliers cruised to the 21-point victory.
"We did make a point at halftime, as we were up by five, to play a strong first five minutes of the second half," Virginia coach Debbie Ryan said.
This was a bit of sweet revenge for the Lady Cavaliers, who lost to the Lady Lions at Penn State, 90-77, on Jan. 6.
The Lady Lions finished the season at 25-7 and the Lady Cavaliers upped their record to 27-5. Virginia now faces Providence on Thursday at Old Dominion in an East Region semifinal game.
"Turnovers in the first half were real critical," Coach Rene Portland said. "Our second-half offense -- we never got anything going."
The Lady Lions hit just 9-of-32 shots in the second half -- only 27 percent and finished the game shooting 39.6 percent. They also hit only 1-of-11 3-pointers. In the first game against Virginia, forward Lynn Dougherty alone hit five treys, but yesterday she did not hit a single one.
"The 3-point game was not there for us today," Portland said. "We did not run that well."
Portland downplayed the fact that the Lady Lions were tired coming off their 83-73 victory against Florida State on Wednesday. Virginia, on the other hand, had 13 days of rest since its last game.
Susan Robinson, who scored eight of the Lady Lions' first 15 points, led Penn State to an eight-point lead in the first half, 15-7. She also led Penn State in scoring with 18 points.
But slowly the Lady Cavaliers began to come back. After Reiss canned a jumper at the 9:07 mark, Virginia had its first lead of the game, 21-19. Penn State hung tough, knotting the score at 23 and then at 25. But after Reiss hit two foul shots and then was fouled after making a layup, Virginia was up by seven, 34-27.
"I felt toward the middle of the first half we started to take advantage of things we talked about in the scouting report," Ryan said. "We really wanted to take advantage of our ability to penetrate."
The Lady Lions refused to die, however, and after Kretchmar nailed a 14-footer with only 10 seconds remaining, the Lady Lions went into halftime down by five. Penn State had cut into the lead but could never regain it in the second half.
The Lady Lions were close for the first seven minutes, but then came the 11-0 run that salted the game away.
'"The score did kind of fluctuate for the first couple of possessions," Ryan said. "It looked like our intensity just picked up on defense. We were able to forced some key turnovers and then convert."
Virginia forced 12 steals, four each by Reiss and Staley. The Lady Cavaliers caused 27 Penn State turnovers.
