WRAL Sports Fan

North Carolina State University

Wolfpack women get first ACC win

By N.C. State sports information

Feb 1, 2009

Shayla Fields scored 15 of her 19 points after halftime to fuel an NC State come-from-behind 57-46 win at Virginia Tech Sunday afternoon from Cassell Coliseum.

The victory improves NC State (9-12, 1-5 ACC) to 10-0 all-time against Virginia Tech (10-11, 1-6 ACC) and 125-0 when allowing less than 50 points.

In gaining its first league win of the season, the Wolfpack shot 51.9 percent from the field after halftime. A 24-10 run broke open a 28-all score at the 15:41 mark of the second.

Sharnise Beal added 14 points for the Pack. Nikki Davis led Virginia Tech with 14.

A Nikitta Gartrell layup gave the Pack a 30-28 lead at the 14:21 mark of second half – the clubs first lead since it was 11-10 with 8:40 left in the opening stanza.

The lead grew to 42-34 after a shot clock-beating three-pointer from 25 feet by Fields with 8:16 left.

The Hokies never got closer than six and the lead would expand to 14 on a Beal layup with 4:18 to go.

First half action saw neither team finding much rhythm on offense. NC State took a 12-8 lead after a free throw from Lucy Ellison at the 12:00 mark.

That was followed by a stretch where the Pack went five minutes until its next bucket and would go another 5:14 until a Gartrell layup with 1:46 to go until intermission. At that juncture the visitors felt pretty good only trailing 20-16 after two long scoring droughts.

The Hokies went into their locker room with a 23-18 lead. Both teams shot around 30-percent and turned the ball over 11 times in the opening 20 minutes, but the difference was Virginia Tech’s ability to get to the free throw line and convert 9-of-11 attempts, while the Wolfpack went just 1-of-2.

NC State continues its road swing at No. 8/9 Maryland Thursday at Comcast Center beginning at 7 p.m. The game is available on ACCSelect.com.