Dawn Evans, James Madison, too much for women’s basketball

Stephen Kasper
Contributing Writer
Commonwealth Times Sports’ Twitter

It seemed like nothing was going VCU’s way last night.

Turnovers, poor passing, and forced shots that would lead to a season low 29 percent from the field
all contributed to one of the most frustrating nights of the season for VCU as the Rams fell to James
Madison 71-51.

The Rams showed signs of life in the beginning of the game scoring 15 quick points but were held to
just 21 for the remainder of the first half.

Andrea Barbour led the Rams in scoring with 21 points and Courtney Hurt continued her NCAA
leading double-double streak, posting 20 points and 11 boards.

VCU was down big at halftime trailing JMU 43-21 and it looked like it might be getting out
of hand for the Rams, but VCU head coach Beth Cunningham must have lit a fire under her team because
with just over four minutes to go in the second half, VCU pulled within nine.

Unfortunately for VCU, Dawn Evans put that fire out before it could really get going.

For JMU, Evans scored a game-high 30 points and closed the gap between herself and
Connecticut’s Maya Moore for the leading scorer in the country.

With every shot VCU made to close the gap, Evans and her teammates found a way to make up for it
and then some.

The Rams showed how competitive they are by refusing to give up, but in the end it just wasn’t enough
to overcome such a big deficit.

VCU (13-9, 8-4) will look to bounce back as they host conference rival Hofstra (14-9, 6-6) on
Sunday at the Siegel Center.