After struggling through the month of February with bad losses to Syracuse, Stanford, and Boston College, the Virginia Tech women's basketball team faced a must-win game in the second round of the ACC Tournament on Thursday afternoon against Georgia Tech. The Hokies were the No. 8 seed and the Yellow Jackets were No. 9, but Georgia Tech is safely in the NCAA Tournament field according to Charlie Creme, but the Hokies were part of his First Four Out.
The Hokies hung around and were tied at 32-32 at halftime and they trailed by five points at the end of the third quarter, but Georgia Tech used a 17-0 fourth quarter run to run away from Virginia Tech to advance to the quarterfinals on Friday against top-seeded North Carolina State.
Georgia Tech, which lost at home in double overtime in January to the Hokies, which was their first loss after 15 straight wins to begin the season, did an excellent job in the first half of taking Virginia Tech's Carleigh Wenzel and Carys Baker out of the game. Both players were held scoreless in the opening 20 minutes with Wenzel going 0-for-6 and Baker 0-for-3. The game was tied at 32 at the half because Matilda Ekh caught fire from behind the arc and drilled four 3-pointers to finish with a first-half high of 14 points.
In the second half, Baker got going in the third quarter and Wenzel, who became a play-maker, got her first basket in the fourth quarter, but the Yellow Jackets went on their huge run in the fourth quarter to pull away from the Hokies. The Yellow Jackets' defense was just too tough for Virginia Tech as they struggled to get any good offensive looks and forced a lot of shots against the shot clock.
Ekh finished with 19 points and Rose Micheaux had 17 points, including her 1,000th career point. Lanie White had nine points. Tonie Morgan led Georgia Tech with 19 points.
Now Virginia Tech must sit and wait until March 16 when the NCAA Tournament field is announced. They are truly on the bubble and now they have to have a lot of results in other tournaments go their way to sneak into the 68-team field.