MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Bria Holmes scored a career-best 36 points and No. 17 West Virginia held off Seton Hall at the buzzer, 89-87, on Monday night to advance to the Preseason WNIT semifinals.
Holmes shot 10-of-19 from the floor and made 12-of-17 at the foul line to match Kate Bulger (2003) for the second-highest single-game scoring performance at the WVU Coliseum.
But the Mountaineers (2-0) also needed a monster game from Averee Fields—21 points, 15 rebounds and five assists—to edge the Pirates (1-1), who got 32 points from Tabatha Richardson-Smith.
“I’m proud of them. I’m proud of the girls,” said West Virginia coach Mike Carey. “At least we got the win. I’ve said that it’s going to be growing pains as we go, and it is. We’re just have to get better.”
Teana Muldrow made six 3-pointers on her way to 19 points and grabbed nine rebounds for West Virginia, which visits Mississippi State on Thursday night in the WNIT semifinals. Linda Stepney scored only six points but handed out nine assists while playing a turnover-free 34 minutes.
“When was the line time you saw a team of mine give up 87 points? We usually don’t even score 89 points in two games, yet we give up 87 and we won.” — WVU coach Mike Carey
After pulling ahead 72-70 on Fields’ layup with 7:09 left, WVU stretched the lead to nine in the final four minutes. But Seton Hall rallied to cut the lead to one on two free throws by Ka-Deidre Simmons with 13 seconds left before Muldrow made 1-of-2. On the game’s final possession, Simmons, who finished with 20 points, missed a chance to tie it on a driving runner that fell short.
“I think we all saw a really good basketball game,” said Seton Hall coach Anthony Bozzella. “It was a lot of excitement, a lot of scoring—up and down. I think we fell one shot short but we have nothing to hang our heads for at all.
“Fields is a really good player, and obviously Holmes is tremendous.”
Holmes, the Big 12 preseason player of the year, played 40 minutes and made 4-of-9 from 3-point range.
“We wanted to try and crowd (Holmes) and not let her set people up, but I thought where she really hurt us there was in transition,” Bozzella said. “I thought we did a bad job of locating her. She shot the ball better from 3-point range today than she’s been shooting it.”
Seton Hall shot 43 percent overall and 48 percent from 3-point trance (12-of-25), while the Mountaineers finished at 42 percent from the floor and 45 percent on 3s (11-of-24). West Virginia nearly was undone by 24-of-40 foul shooting, compared to the Pirates making 17-of-22.
West Virginia had not won when allowing 87 or more points since beating Providence in January 1998.
“On defense, when was the line time you saw a team of mine give up 87 points?” Carey said. “We usually don’t even score 89 points in two games, yet we give up 87 and we won.
“Dribble penetration killed us all night. Even when we went into a zone, they would dribble penetrate. We’ve got to get back to the drawing board a little bit. That’s a good team, though.”