ND Women's Basketball: Irish top Hokies at home
By: NOAH AMSTADTER
Sports Editor
When No. 1-ranked Connecticut topped Notre Dame by 27 points last Monday, Husky players pointed out that they keyed in on Irish leading scorers Jacqueline Batteast and Alicia Ratay. That defensive plan worked, as the pair combined for just 15 points.
Saturday night, with Notre Dame's 46-game home winning streak at stake against Associated Press No. 16 Virginia Tech, the focus again was on Batteast and Ratay.
And they rose to the challenge.
Batteast scored a team-high 26 points while Ratay added 22 — including a half-court buzzer-beater and a four-point play — as the Irish topped the Hokies 64-57. The announced crowd of 8,878 was the fourth-largest Joyce Center attendance mark ever for the women's team.
"Alicia and Jackie just played probably the best games of their seasons so far," Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw said after the game. "Just outstanding on both ends of the floor. I thought offensively they made so many big shots."
The win against Virginia Tech, also ranked 17th in the ESPN/USA Today poll, was the first of the season for the Irish against a ranked team. The Irish had previously fallen to Michigan, Purdue and Connecticut.
"I think it does a lot for our confidence, it does a lot for our RPI and it really does a lot for the NCAA tournament," McGraw said. "That was a win that really finally we look at and we beat a ranked team. That was critical for us."
Batteast came on strong from the start, scoring 13 points in a row as the Irish took a 15-7 lead nine minutes into the ballgame. After two consecutive Kelsey Wicks 3-pointers stretched the Irish lead to 21-11, the Hokies came storming back, closing the Irish lead to 27-24 with 1.9 seconds remaining before halftime.
At that mark, Wicks rolled a "ground ball" pass to Ratay, who dribbled twice before letting go at half-court just before the buzzer sounded. The ball arched high into the air, taking a quick bounce off the backboard before falling through the net to give the Irish a 30-24 halftime advantage.
"I thought the half-court shot gave us a lot of momentum," McGraw said. "Alicia just said she had a great sense of the clock in her head."
Those three points were Ratay's first of the game, but they wouldn't be her last. After a lay-up and 3-pointer by Hokies' forward Lena Kublina closed the gap to 30-29, McGraw called a 30-second timeout to regroup her offense.
Batteast responded with a lay-up to increase the Irish lead to three. Then, after a missed shot by Chrystal Starling on the other end, Ratay took a Wicks pass behind the 3-point line, and put up the shot with Sarah Hicks defending. The shot went in, and Hicks got called for the foul. Ratay sank the free throw for her second four-point play of the season.
Virginia Tech came within three points just once the rest of the way, as Ratay and Batteast provided all the offense. In fact, other than two Le'Tania Severe free throws, Batteast and Ratay combined for 32 of Notre Dame's 34 second-half points.
"We were really only calling plays for those two for the majority of the second half," McGraw said. "We felt like we wanted the ball in one of their hands almost all the time with the game that close. There were opportunities for other people to score, they just weren't making their shots."
Batteast in particular looked comfortable with the ball in her hands. After making just two of 10 attempts from the field against Connecticut, the freshman hit nine of 17 attempts from the field and seven of eight from the free-throw line.
"In this game I tried get a little closer to the basket and I was able to finish my shot," Batteast said. "When you get off to a good start, it's usually better."
All Sports Stories for Monday, January 28, 2002
