FAIRFAX, Va. – Returning to action for the first time in more than a week, the George Mason women's basketball team flexed its muscle in front of its largest crowd of the season.
Sophomore Nicole Cardaño-Hillary scored 19 of her 32 points in the second half to lead the Patriots past Rhode Island for a 75-69 victory on Sunday afternoon in front of a season-high crowd of 1,158 at EagleBank Arena.
Junior captain
Jacy Bolton added 19 points and 13 rebounds for her seventh double-double of the season and junior
Allie McCool came off the bench to grab a career-high nine rebounds. Coming off a bye week, Mason (11-8, 3-3 Atlantic 10) collected its third straight victory and first home conference win of the year.
"Really good win for our team today," Mason head coach
Nyla Milleson said. "We had a really good week of practice. But you're always a little nervous after you've had a week off, especially after having a big win like last weekend (at rival George Washington). We definitely needed the rest. We got to be able to work on some things and tweak somethings. Still just that letdown from not playing a game for a week. So, I thought we just a half step slow in the first half. I thought we played a really good second half and everybody did what they needed to get the win."
The Patriots shot just 22.7 percent in the first quarter but trailed by only two at halftime. A hot-shooting third quarter propelled them into the lead for good.
Mason made 61.5 percent from the field in the third period and went on a 12-4 run late in the frame. Back-to-back 3-pointers by
Sarah Kaminski and Cardaño-Hillary opened the spurt. McCool's added a layup on assist from Bolton, who then capped off the run with a trey for Mason's largest lead, 55-46, with 1:18 left in the period.
Rhode Island (7-12, 2-5) battled back, though, cutting the deficit to 59-58 with 2:50 left. But after Cardaño-Hillary made four straight free throws and Kaminski drained another 3-pointer to give the Patriots a commanding 66-58 lead with 2:05 remaining.
Cardaño-Hillary's 15 free throws (on just 17 attempts) were the most by a Mason player since Nov. 24, 2001 when Laura Kooij also made 15 from the charity stripe. As a team, the Patriots shot 79 percent from the free-throw line (27 of 34).
Cardaño-Hillary also posted the second 30-point plus game of her career, just one shy of a personal-best 33 she scored at Eastern Kentucky last month. The guard from Madrid, Spain, moved up to 19th on Mason's all-time scoring list and needs just four points to reach 1,000 points for her career.
The Patriots, the second-best rebounding team in the A-10, also dominated the glass with a 43-33 edge. They grabbed 17 offensive rebounds, which they converted 13 second-chance points. Mason also held Rhode Island to just 29 percent from beyond the arc (5 of 17). Nicole Jorgensen led the Rams with 22 points and 11 rebounds.
Mason heads to play Saint Louis at 8 p.m. on Thursday in St. Louis, Mo., before heading to St. Bonaventure next Sunday in Olean, N.Y., for a two-game road swing.
