The Hokies were overwhelmed by No. 3 Notre Dame in the second half of Thursday night’s 77-61 loss in Cassell Coliseum.
Virginia Tech (14-7, 5-5 ACC) led for 13 of the first 20 minutes and hung tough with the Fighting Irish (18-2, 9-0) through halftime. However, Notre Dame was too much in the third quarter and Tech couldn’t recover in its second consecutive loss.
“After the North Carolina State game, we were pretty gutted with our performance,” Tech head coach Megan Duffy said. “We just really tried to focus in two days of finding a way to improve on a lot of different things, but I thought our team’s response to commit to each other, battle, fight was really good today.
“Notre Dame’s a really special and unique team and they have so much firepower. As soon as you think you do one thing well against them, they have a counter to make it difficult on us. And that third quarter, the beginning of it, I made a couple mistakes and got us on our heels and Notre dame took advantage of that. I have to be better for my team.”
Unlike Sunday’s defeat at No. 20 NC State, the Hokies came out with energy and started the game well. They led by as many as seven points and had good offensive possessions early — they were 7-of-14 in the first period — but couldn’t sustain it.
Instead, ND gradually cut into it, courtesy of Maddy Westbeld. She scored her only two baskets in a 30-second span — a 3-pointer and a jumper — and a corner three from Sonia Citron a few minutes later tied things at 26 with 5:19 left in the first half.
After trading some points, Tech was up 30-28 after a three-point play from Matilda Ekh with 3:17 remaining in the second quarter. However, the Irish scored eight quick points — four of which came from Liza Karlen — and Carys Baker’s jump shot right before the buzzer made it a 36-32 deficit for Tech at the break.
“I think the message with the starters was obviously, against NC State, we came out, we got punched really early,” Baker said. “So I guess when we got into the huddle, we were saying, ‘We can’t come out again like that, especially at home.’ We need to feed off of the crowd’s energy, like Coach Duffy said, and I think we did that in the beginning. I think I liked how our team came out.
“Obviously, they’re a really good team and we knew that they were going to make some runs, but I think in the first half we handled it really well and we didn’t get flustered like we did at NC State.”
To that point, Virginia Tech had fought well against a legitimate national championship-contending team, but Notre Dame laid the hammer down out of the locker room. Hannah Hidalgo knocked down a trey on the first possession of the second half and the margin quickly ballooned.
Hidalgo took over, and the national player of the year candidate scored 16 of her 30 points in the third quarter. (For comparison, Tech had just 14 points in the third.) She was 10-of-16 from the field and 7-of-7 from the foul line while dishing out five assists.
While the Irish were 7-of-12 from the floor and made nine of their 10 free throws in the period, it was their defense that turned the tide. Tech only made five of its 12 attempts, three of which came from Baker, and Hidalgo had a response at every turn.
Still, the Hokies settled down and disrupted ND to start the fourth. They ripped off a 7-2 run — capped off by an Ekh triple — that got the home crowd on its feet and cut the deficit to 63-53 with 6:24 remaining.
Yet, Karlen had other ideas. A former player of Duffy’s at Marquette, she swiftly executed a pick-and-pop with Olivia Miles and drained a three from the top of the key in response with the shot clock winding down. That was the proverbial dagger.
“That was big,” Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey said. “It was the first thing I talked about in the locker room. Our offense kind of got stagnant late in the shot clock, big three. She was left alone.”
That set in motion an 8-0 run, and though Tech trailed by as many as 22, it ended the game with six straight points to make the final deficit 16.
Hidalgo carried the Irish while Miles chipped in 15 points, nine of which came in the first quarter. They got the team off on the right foot, and Westbeld, Citron and Liatu King filled in the gaps in scoring. Karlen had a clutch performance, too, finishing with 12 points on 5-of-5 shooting.
King only posted six points but notched four steals and 12 rebounds. She anchored ND’s defense in the post and was a big reason why it had an uptick in the second half.
“She plays with the level of toughness that we need,” Ivey said of King. “Her presence, her experience. She’s undersized. Sometimes she’s matched up with a center, sometimes she’s with the four, sometimes I’m switching her on guards. She can pretty much play one through five defensively and has a lot of really tough assignments and she plays with no fear.”
On the Hokies’ side, early foul trouble for Carleigh Wenzel and Rose Micheaux — their two leading scorers — set them back. Micheaux eventually got going and had 10 points (4-of-9) in 24 minutes, but Wenzel fouled out with just five points (1-of-8).
Baker impressed and paced Tech with 17 points and a career-high 11 rebounds on 7-of-11 shooting. The rest of the team was a combined 15-of-45, though. Mackenzie Nelson, who had eight points and knocked down three of her four attempts, was the only other player above 50 percent. Ekh was the second-leading scorer with 13 points.
The Hokies are 5-5 in the league through 10 games and have the next two at home against SMU and Syracuse. Those squads are a combined 4-15 this season in the conference.
“We want to be there,” Duffy said of the Irish’s current first-place standing in the ACC. “Tech has been there in the past, not too long ago, and so as we build our program up, we’re seeing what it looks like through other ACC teams and I thought it was great experience for our team.”
Box Score: No. 3 Notre Dame 77, Virginia Tech 61
Thoughts from #Hokies' 77-61 loss to No. 3 Notre Dame: pic.twitter.com/73GqMit6nr
— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) January 31, 2025