Dominant First Half Propels BC to Senior Day Victory Over Wake
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)Publisher
Senior Day is always emotional. But Sunday afternoon was the last home game for a group of five seniors who started their Boston College women’s basketball careers with head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee. A class that sniffed an NCAA Tournament appearance two years ago before the world was flipped upside down by COVID-19.
A class that has helped transform a program that was once trapped in the ACC’s cellar into a tough out for anyone in the league.
“We came in together, we built it from the ground through the ups and downs, and we’ve stayed with each other,” guard Marnelle Garraud said.
Those five seniors closed the weekend by combining for 62 of BC’s points in an 82-70 win over Wake Forest. Cam Swartz logged 20-plus points for the fourth straight game. Taylor Soule, a Cheryl Miller Award top-10 finalist, added 17 points. And Makayla Dickens chipped in 11 points.
More importantly, four of the five classmates recorded five or more assists as the Eagles (17-10, 8-8 ACC) penetrated Wake Forest’s matchup 2-3 zone with a season-high 26 feeders.
The Demon Deacons (13-14, 3-13) used a 27-point third quarter to pull within eight points of BC, however, Bernabei-McNamee’s squad buckled up in the final frame.
The Eagles couldn’t have been better in the first half.
They shot 55.9% from the floor, including 7-of-14 from downtown. They piled up 16 assists—more than they had totaled in each of their last eight games. They held a 23-12 advantage on the glass. And they committed only five turnovers.
BC staked itself to a 22-6 lead in the first quarter and grew that advantage to 20 points before intermission. Swartz came out firing, knocking down 6-of-10 shots, notably a pair of 3-pointers, for 16 first-half points. Meanwhile, Soule was doing the dirty work on the other end of the floor.
The versatile and feisty small forward held Wake Forest’s Jewel Spear—the ACC’s leading scorer—scoreless in the opening two quarters.
As much as Sunday was about BC’s seniors, the win also featured a milestone for one of the Eagles’ youngest players: freshman center Maria Gakdeng, who registered three blocks, tied Elisabeth Houghton for the single-season program record with 58 rejections.
Gakdeng nearly had a double-double, too, with nine points and eight rebounds. She kicked off the second half by grabbing a board and pushing the ball upcourt. That led to a Swartz transition layup.
Except, that sequence wasn’t indicative of how the third quarter proceeded. The Eagles didn’t just coast to the finish line.
Instead, the Demon Deacons strung together a 13-5 run that featured a free throw line jumper from Christina Morra, an Elise Williams 3-pointer from the left wing and Alexandria Scruggs finding Spear underneath the basket.
Williams and Spear spearheaded the third-quarter comeback, teaming up for 20 points in the period. Spear put the finishing touches on the offensive outburst, first with a behind-the-back dribble and pull-up jumper and then with an and-one fastbreak layup to make it 64-56.
Dickens was key in getting the Eagles back on track. Following a Gakdeng block at the beginning of the fourth quarter, she fed her post player for two points on the other end. Soon after, she took matters into her own hands with a mid-range jumper before driving and dishing a pass to Soule on the break a few possessions later.
Just like that, BC was up a dozen, 70-58.
Swartz got going again to close out the Deacons. She netted a stepback jumper and an off-balanced floater in the final frame. Reserve center Clara Ford, also a senior, fittingly wrapped things up with her second layup of the back half of play.
The seniors checked out of the game to a round of Conte Forum applause, and the Eagles—who were part of ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme's "Last Four In" Sunday—secured their eighth ACC win of the season.
Players embraced after the game, however, Soule made it clear that this team isn’t done yet.
It’s on a mission to get where it believes it should have been two years ago.
“We have to go dancing,” she said. “It’s not even a question of if.
“We have to do it.”
