Rams rue turnovers in dreadful loss to Drexel

Adam Stern
Assistant Sports Editor
Commonwealth Times Sports Twitter

Anything VCU can do, Drexel’s Gabriela Marginean can do better.

That oft-repeated theme played out slowly but ultimately surely once again Sunday in VCU’s critical 70-62 home loss to fellow CAA Title hopefuls Drexel.

The Rams, who came into the game tied with the Dragons for second place in the league standings, held a double-digit lead from the early minutes of the game until midway through the second half. More importantly, VCU frustrated Marginean, the CAA Preseason Player of the Year and All-American candidate, to a mere six points in the first half.

The latter stage of the second half however, played more to the tune of the Romanian-born native as she scored a monstrous 23 of her game-high 29 points in the final period—including a span where she scored 15 of her team’s 17 points.

“We let Gabriela go off and if we didn’t let her go off, I don’t know how successful they would have been,” senior D’Andra Moss (Atlanta, Ga. /Norcross) said. “That’s basically the reason why they won the game.”

VCU, sporting pink headbands on the day in conjunction with the Women’s Breast Cancer Association’s Pink Zone promotion to raise awareness about the disease, came out of the gates red-hot and raced to 13 point lead with just under half of the first half gone. Most of that was due to the unstoppable Moss, who had already scored 10 points within five minutes.

Yet even with Marginean struggling early and the rest of the Dragons looking even more lethargic then her, VCU cooled off considerably after their stupendous start and led by only eight at halftime after working hard enough to have had a much more sizeable advantage.

In the second half, Drexel looked like they had finally awoken from their slumber as Marginean and co. came out with guns blazing. Yet the Rams looked like they were good for their lead as sophomore Courtney Hurt (Loganville, Ga./Salem) helped carry the scoring load with Moss by dropping 12 of her 21 in the period.

However the Rams were to be undone not by Marginean or any other player on the court for that matter, but by Drexel head coach Denise Dillon. Sensing a chink in VCU’s armor, the seventh-year coach switched to a full court press with just over 13 minutes remaining—leaving her opponents baffled and bemused.

The move proved masterful as VCU’s offensive efforts went into mayhem, causing the Rams to give up nine turnovers in the half—seven of which came in the pivotal six minute span where Drexel took the lead for the first time in the entire contest. While the Dragons were having their way on their defensive end, they were having just as much, if not more, success on the other end of the court where they literally doubled their first-half shooting percentage to shoot a blistering 63 percent in the second half.

“Their press seemed to change the momentum of the game a little bit,” VCU head coach Beth Cunningham said. “They’re so efficient on the offensive end so turnovers kind of played right into their strength which is offensive execution.”

The swing of momentum was so great that, remarkably, the game didn’t even come down to the final minutes. After overcoming their eight point halftime deficit, the Dragons had come back to win handedly—marking their first season sweep over the Rams since the 2004-2005 season.

The loss leaves Drexel in sole possession of second place, while the Rams are also alone in third place. VCU will try to recover from their two-game losing skid Thursday night at home against William & Mary.

Before the game, Moss and Kita Waller (Gainesville, Ga./Gainesville) were honored for surpassing the 1000-point mark in last weekend’s win versus Old Dominion, making them the 17th and 18th Rams to ever achieve the accolade.

“It felt good (to get the award), now it doesn’t mean so much anymore because we just got our ass beat,” Moss said. “But I’ve never done that before in my life, even in high school, so I’m happy.”

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