Career-high 35 points by Keishana Washington send Drexel women to CAA title game
Keishana Washington took over late to give the Dragons a berth in the CAA final.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/pmn/DYCBKVTY5RHHPNRMWQLNXKQMK4.jpg)
The pendulum kept swinging.
First, it went in James Madison’s direction in the second quarter, then it was Drexel’s turn in the third. The pattern continued as the Dukes got the advantage in the fourth to force overtime.
Drexel didn’t need the pendulum to swing back in its direction in overtime. All it needed was Keishana Washington.
The junior guard scored a career-high 35 points as Drexel defeated James Madison, 79-76, in the Colonial Athletic Association women’s semifinals Friday night in Elon, N.C.
Washington’s previous career high of 27 came against JMU last season.
“Once I got it going, I felt like my teammates kept feeding me the ball,” Washington said. “They trusted me to make plays, so that’s what I did.”
The other half of the dynamic duo, Hannah Nihill, was steady with 16 points in 45 minutes. The question was who else would step up for Drexel. The answer came in bunches. Kate Connolly scored all 11 of her points in the second half. Mariah Leonard took charges on defense and added eight points.
“Everyone’s ready to score the ball, everyone’s a threat,” Washington said. “It makes us a bigger offensive threat.”
Kiki Jefferson led the Dukes with 31 points. The 6-foot-1 guard used her size advantage to attack Drexel defenders. The Dragons were up by two with 29 seconds remaining when Jefferson drove to the basket, fought through contact, and forced overtime.
The size mismatch didn’t hurt Drexel’s tenacious defense. The Dragons forced 20 turnovers and had an 18-6 advantage in points off turnovers.
“We know we’re smaller than most teams we play, so we have to be the aggressors and make them do something they don’t want to do,” coach Amy Mallon said.
» READ MORE: Why was Phil Martelli the head coach for the end of Michigan’s game? | Mike Jensen
That advantage showed up most in the third quarter, when Drexel outscored JMU, 26-7. This came after the Dukes led by as much as 12 after outscoring Drexel, 19-9, in the second quarter.
Washington and Mallon both pointed to the motivation they’re receiving from the Drexel men’s team that clinched an NCAA Tournament berth with its CAA title. The women are one game away from making it the first time that both the men’s and women’s teams make the NCAAs.
However, it won’t be easy. Top-seeded Delaware is in the way. The Blue Hens swept the regular-season meetings, 68-60 and 66-55, on Feb 12 and 14.
Delaware isn’t as big, but it has Jasmine Dickey, who averages 23 points per game. The championship game will tip off at 6 p.m.
“As a coach in the league, I enjoy seeing how she plays,” Mallon said of Dickey, “but playing against her, we have to come up with something that limits what she does and what she wants to do.”