Virginia Tech Hokie Women’s Basketball Wins Two More Games Beating BC and SMU Soundly

The women’s basketball team had a bit of a stumble at the beginning of the new year. Coach Duffy had to figure out how to get the team refocused and their confidence built back. It looks like whatever she did, worked. We already talked about the road trip to Syracuse and the solid performances by the players, but the brutal geo graphical zig-zag of their schedule meant maintaining that edge over the next two weeks.

Seasons have turning points. Sometimes they have several turning points at critical periods. The end of 2025 and beginning of 2026 might have been one major pivot point for the Lady Hokies. After the disappointing performance in Louisville (which seemed to have been precipitated by the 4th quarter melt down against Miami), Coach Duffy had a serious problem. The team could have continued bumping along a path below their talent level, or they could rally up and figure out that they were better basketball players than the prior 5 quarters had shown.

That takes a good deal of introspection, honest re-assessment, and then action to correct by everyone involved including coaches and the players. Coach Duffy brought that up at the beginning of her radio show with Evan Hughes. She owned it, publicly admitted it, and without pointing bloody fingers, set the team back on the right track. Or, at least she hoped because the road trip to Syracuse to face the red-hot Lady Orange was going to be a really tough test in a really dauntingly different environment.

But one game is a break stop, but it needs to be followed up. The ACC is a tough slug. There are few if any games for teams to coast a bit. The Hokies needed to keep the momentum of the Syracuse win going. They got a chance to take a bit of a breath with struggling Boston College, and doing it in front of a home crowd at Cassell.

Game 1 – Boston College – Jan 11th – Win 78-56

The 20-point win (77-57) over Syracuse was actually pretty surprising. The Hokies were not favored, and they certainly weren’t favored to bust the spread by that much, but there was a long road trip back home, and only a 3-day break before the BC Lady Eagles showed up in Blacksburg.

If you had to describe the BC game in one phrase or sentence it would be “three Quarters of Dominance before slamming the door.” Now the Hokies have had an “issue” with slow starts this season. It often takes the team a half to a full 1st quarter to get things rolling on offense. Well, it happened again for this one, but then…

The First Set the Tone for the Game

Leila Wells drained a trey to start off the Hokie scoring for the game just before the clock ticked down to 9 minutes left in the quarter. The teams would fiddle back and forth missing shots, BC making a 2-pointer, and another 3 and a half minutes ticking by before Carleigh Wenzel tossed away the lid for the Hokies with a layup. Kilah Freelon would be the Hokies’ only points after that on 4 free-throws for the next minute of fumbled exchanges. At roughly 4:30 in the period, though, BC ran into some serious ball handling and missed shots while the Hokies finally started hitting consistently. Mel Daley was connecting big from the charity stripe. Carys Baker finally dropped in a three-pointer to get herself started, and Mel and Samyha Suffren scored from the floor. That flurry of baskets was not met by the Lady Eagles, and even with the final 2 points being scored by BC, the Hokies had piled up a 22-9 score at the horn.

BC would do better in the next 3 quarters, even winning the 4th by 2 but Tech just kept piling up the point differential into the beginning of the 4th by winning the 2nd quarter 19-13, and the critical 3rd quarter 20-15. As the horn sounded at the end of beginning of the 4th quarter, there was no way, short of the Hokies heading out the exits for lunch, that BC had any chance of making up a 24-point (61-37) deficit. Yes, Miami had pulled off a big close, but the ‘Canes had already grabbed serious momentum in the middle of the 3rd period. This time, the Hokies were in control, and they understood that all they needed to do was stay on the exchange and not let the Eagles close the gap.

Biscuits Were Had

The game closed on a steady flip back and forth with the Hokies just keeping pace with the Eagles, and cruising a bit on the momentum and emotion of a solid team performance. Of course, home games where the Lady Hokies score 75 or more get a reward of a free Bojangles sausage biscuit so there is that excitement as the score pushed in the 70’s. Carys Baker, who had been relatively quiet in the first half, got the honor of handing out breakfast for Monday morning.

The Hokies ended up with a 22-point win (78-56) and the promise of a long road trip to Dallas with some real momentum behind themselves for a change.

Stats for the BC Game

Coach Duffy emptied the bench for this one. Nearly everyone had enough playing time to score or contribute something positive for the team. Of course, that is critical for young player development and retention. Freshmen and Sophomores who get playing time are better players in the long run, and in the new area of program cohesion, critical to keeping young players on the team after the season. Even in ACC play, it’s really good to see Coach Duffy having the confidence to get the deep part of the bench out on the floor.

Double Figures for Baker, Wenzel, and Daley

Carys Baker led the team with 17 points by shooting 50% from the floor at both 2- and 3-point range. She hit 2 of 2 from the free-throw line, and pulled down 4 rebounds and pushed out an assist. It took Carys a little while to get started, but when she did the points kept piling up.

Carleigh Wenzel hit double figures with 10 points and pushed out 4 assists. Wenzel didn’t shoot a ton from the floor for this one. She matched Carys with the 50% mark but 6 total shots is not much for her. One thing is that Mackie Nelson, who Carleigh shares Point Guard with, got into early foul trouble so Wenzel ended up doing more Point quarterbacking than what has been usual. She also grabbed 3 boards, but by the end had also been tagged with her 4th foul so the refs were keeping a tight lid on the point guard activity for this one.

Mel Daley is playing off the read bench for this part of the season. Leila Wells has been starting at that guard position for a few games. Maybe the move ended up being a smart one. Daley scored 10 points, with 6 rebounds and an assist. She actually played more minutes than Leila did for the game. Sometimes coming off the bench give a player an opportunity to scope out the opposition and get a feel for what needs to be done after they substitute. This seemed to be the case for Mel, who had an excellent outing.

Let’s look at the full chart edited a bit from Hokie Sports:

#	Name	Time	Points	Field Goals	Three-Pointers	Free-Throws	Rebounds	ORB-DRB	Fouls	Assists	Turnovers	Blocks	Steals
10	Carys Baker*	30:36	17	6 – 12	3 – 8	2 – 2	4	2 – 2	2	1	4	0	0
1	Carleigh Wenzel*	21:26	10	3 – 6	0 – 2	4 – 5	3	0 – 3	4	4	2	0	0
0	Kilah Freelon*	20:46	9	2 – 3	0 – 0	5 – 5	9	4 – 5	1	2	1	1	0
2	Leila Wells*	19:42	7	3 – 7	1 – 3	0 – 0	1	1 – 0	3	2	3	1	0
3	Mackenzie Nelson*	25:16	6	3 – 5	0 – 1	0 – 0	1	1 – 0	5	2	2	0	0
21	Mel Daley	22:04	10	3 – 8	0 – 0	4 – 4	6	2 – 4	2	1	0	0	0
12	Samyha Suffren	25:47	9	4 – 9	0 – 2	1 – 1	4	2 – 2	0	3	1	0	1
31	Sophie Swanson	9:17	4	1 – 2	1 – 2	1 – 2	3	0 – 3	1	0	2	0	0
30	Aniya Trent	14:33	4	2 – 2	0 – 0	0 – 0	4	2 – 2	3	0	1	0	0
24	Amani Jenkins	7:31	2	1 – 1	0 – 0	0 – 0	1	0 – 1	5	1	1	0	0
11	Spela Brecelj	3:01	0	0 – 0	0 – 0	0 – 0	1	0 – 1	0	0	1	0	0
Totals			78	28 – 55	5 – 18	17 – 19	37	14 – 23	26	16	18	2	1

The Wrap for This One

The Lady Eagles have been struggling of late. The Hokies were expected to win, but it was critical that they do so with some amount of due emphasis. As the general grading goes for who gets into the year-end tournaments, the way that at team wins gets them or loses them points in the final scoring. This was an emphatic tub thumping that Tech needed to pull off.

Also, it was a big milestone for the Lady Hokies who won the program’s 500th victory in Cassell Coliseum. IT’s actually a pretty big accomplishment for the team and program.

Game 2 – January 15th – SMU @ Dallas – Win 79-42

This is another game where the Lady Hokies were favored slightly. SMU has been struggling a bit this season and the Lady Mustangs haven’t gotten above the .500 mark, yet. They were 0-5 in the ACC and at home, which could make them a trap game opponent, especially after a longish break between games and a long flight to Dallas.

It was a Walk Away…

So, the starters weren’t supposed to have much difficulty with the Lady Mustangs. When Carys Baker missed the first shot it was a bit of a head scratch as SMU scored a 2-pointer, but that was the final time that the Lady Mustangs managed a lead in this one. Carys was not to have a great first half shooting effort, that would change as the game wore on, but the starters who led the way in this one were named Leila, Kilah, and Carleigh. Mel Daley would put in a couple of buckets from the bench, and the Hokie defense mostly kept SMU from scoring much, at all.

The game was largely a walk away because there were just so few runs happening. It was just a steady effort scoring with Leila Wells draining another lead off trey with a little over a minute gone in the period. Tech passed the Mustangs 3-2, and just never looked back. Sure, they missed some shots and ate some turnovers, but by the end of the first, the score was 16-8 with SMU just not able to get on top of any exchanges enough to stop or close the steadily increasing differential.

The second period largely repeated the first in pace and scoring. Tech put up 16 for that period, and SMU improved their total to 11, but that 5 points added to the prior 8, and the horn sounded for halftime with the Hokies up 32-19.

The Third Quarter Rule Didn’t Matter Much

As the third quarter started, we had an interesting situation developing. The normally powerful Connecticut Corner was awfully quiet in this contest. Neither Mackie Nelson nor Carys Baker scored in the first half. Nelson never managed a bucket on 6 attempts for the entire game. Mackie isn’t famous for scoring too much, so that wasn’t as bothersome as seeing Carys not draining buckets. It was a great relief to see Baker shatter the lid on the bucket by putting up a nice shot from downtown to open the scoring for the Hokies in the 3rd quarter.

Maybe Carys’s three sparked some movement, because Carleigh drained one, and then Carys came back and dropped in another. Of course, she made another boring old 2-pointer and suddenly instead of a goose egg on her stat line she was looking at an 8. Kilah Freelon would score the next 4 points on a bucket and 2 free-throws. She would eventually score 4 from the charity stripe.

Carleigh and Samyha Suffren scored the final 4 points of the period with 2 inside buckets. Again, it wasn’t a runaway with lots of dominant fast breaks and long point runs, it was more of a steady pressure in which the Hokies would win defensive situation and turn the ball around to either score points or make an attempt.

At the end of the 3rd, SMU was pushing hard to get somewhere, but even the game high point scorer, Anaya Brown (22), couldn’t manage to make a difference. The Hokies basically smothered the Mustangs 22-9 in the 4th. That happened even with Coach Duffy subbing in her bench with increasing volume and for more time. There was one point in the game where there was only one starter on the court, and the Hokies were still scoring and effectively defending.

Game Stats

No one double doubled again, in this one. But the Hokies did have 4 players in double figures.

Kilah Freelon and Samyha Suffren each put up 18 points. Freelon just missed a double-double with 9 boards. Samyha is not known as a big rebounder, but she pulled in 5 for this one. Carys Baker got unstuck in the 2nd half to score 15 points. She also pushed out 4 assists and pulled down 2 ORBs and 3 DRBs. Carleigh Wenzel scored 10 points on field goals and was a solid 2-2 from the charity stripe.

The good thing about this chart is that everyone on the team contributed something significant to the win. Road wins are still tough to come by, but for the Hokies to have managed 3 wins off of a 1 home, 2 away scheduling period was an excellent outcome.

#	Name	MIN	Points	Field Goals	Three Pointers	Free-Throws	Rebounds	ORB-DRB	Fouls	Assists	Turnovers	Blocks	Steals
0	Kilah Freelon*	26:39	18	6 – 9	0 – 0	6 – 8	9	2 – 7	1	2	2	2	3
10	Carys Baker*	27:07	15	6 – 14	3 – 6	0 – 0	5	2 – 3	3	4	0	1	0
1	Carleigh Wenzel*	26:48	10	3 – 8	2 – 4	2 – 2	4	0 – 4	1	3	1	0	1
2	Leila Wells*	15:38	5	2 – 3	1 – 1	0 – 0	0	0 – 0	0	2	3	1	0
3	Mackenzie Nelson*	20:49	0	0 – 6	0 – 2	0 – 0	3	1 – 2	3	5	4	0	2
12	Samyha Suffren	24:00	18	7 – 15	0 – 1	4 – 4	5	1 – 4	0	1	1	2	3
21	Mel Daley	22:01	8	4 – 8	0 – 0	0 – 1	7	3 – 4	1	2	0	0	0
31	Sophie Swanson	6:59	3	1 – 4	1 – 2	0 – 0	1	0 – 1	0	1	0	0	0
24	Amani Jenkins	7:24	2	1 – 1	0 – 0	0 – 0	3	0 – 3	0	1	1	1	1
34	Kayl Petersen	13:59	0	0 – 0	0 – 0	0 – 0	3	2 – 1	1	0	1	0	1
11	Spela Brecelj	3:44	0	0 – 2	0 – 1	0 – 0	1	1 – 0	1	0	0	0	0
30	Aniya Trent	4:50	0	0 – 1	0 – 0	0 – 0	2	1 – 1	1	0	1	0	0
Totals			79	30 – 71	7 – 17	12 – 15	50	17 – 33	12	21	15	7	11

Ice Cream was Definitely Had…

We all know about Coach Duffy’s imported award for the team getting a win on the road. There was definitely a bill for frozen dairy products paid for this one. Again, the Hokies didn’t run away with the game. They just steadily and consistently scored points while denying the Lady Mustangs a solid opportunity to respond. It’s one way to win a game, and it might actually attract more analytical attention than a flash in the pan blowout.

Next Up after a Short Break. Clemson in the Cassell

It’s going to be a bit bittersweet for Thursday January 22nd. Cayla King is coming back home to Blacksburg, BUT, she’s a GA with Sean Poppie’s Lady Tigers, and she’s sporting Clemson colors. The Lady Hokies need to build on this momentum, and we are going to see if the Old Hokies (Poppie was an assistant under Brooks) can win in the Cassell.

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