Virginia Tech trailed Clemson by 11 points in the fourth quarter but rallied late to win 71-68 on Thursday night.
“I’m so proud of our team for fighting,” Hokies head coach Megan Duffy said. “Obviously, the first three quarters weren’t great for us. Give Clemson a lot of credit for the way they came out in a road game and just were tough and physical. We had to make a lot of adjustments, and I just think overall, somehow in that fourth quarter when we were down a lot, they found a different gear, they found a different heart.
“We talked a lot of balance with our team this year, of multiple people helping us in all different ways, but these two — Carleigh [Wenzel] and Carys [Baker] — were amazing. Got stronger defensively as the game went on and made some huge buckets late, especially in late-game situations.”
The Hokies (15-5, 5-3 ACC) pulled a rabbit out of a hat to notch their fourth straight victory. After struggling for the first three quarters and allowing the Tigers (13-7, 4-4) to shoot 56.4 percent (22-for-39), they buckled down in the fourth and did not allow a basket in the final 2:38 while ending the game on an 11-0 run.
“We just stayed together,” Tech guard Carleigh Wenzel said. “I think there are multiple times where we just kind of came together after timeouts or huddles and just said, ‘We’ve got to pick it up, let’s go,’ and I think it clicked in that fourth quarter.”
Clemson posted 13 straight points in the second quarter to outscore Tech 26-16 in the period and take a 39-33 lead into halftime. It had all of the momentum, especially after an 8-0 stretch, led by Raven Thompson, extended the margin to as large as 13 with 1:57 left in the third.
Yet, the Hokies found a way. A Samyha Suffren layup pulled them within 63-55 at the final media timeout, and she capitalized on a Mackenzie Nelson steal a minute later with another bucket that cut the margin to six.
The Tigers received two free throws from Taylor Johnson-Matthews, but Tech’s Carys Baker nailed her second 3-pointer of the game. After Mia Moore responded with a three-point play, Wenzel got two foul shots down.
Then came a turning point. Clemson forward Demeara Hinds missed two free throws, and after Baker knocked down two of her own, pulling the Hokies within four, Hinds was called for an illegal screen out of a Tigers timeout. It was her fifth foul — surprisingly, she was the lone player to foul out in a game that featured 46 personals — and gave Tech a chance to pull even closer, which it did.
“I thought we had a chance at the rim, and if not, we’ve got a wide-open three right in front of the bench,” Clemson head coach Sean Poppie said. “An offensive foul obviously takes that one away.”
On the following possession, Wenzel drove baseline and found a wide-open Suffren on the wing, and the redshirt sophomore made her seventh three of the year. Cassell Coliseum erupted, and despite being down eight points just 71 seconds prior, the Hokies only trailed 68-67 with 1:27 remaining.
“We made a great pass across the baseline, and Samyha was wide open, no hesitation,” Duffy said. “Shot it. I’m so proud of her because she had some up-and-down moments throughout the game, but no bigger than a few of her steals and that big three, and just phenomenal execution out of the back end of a play.”
They made one more play than Clemson from that point on. The Tigers had a jumper from Johnson-Matthews blocked by Baker, and after Duffy called timeout, Tech ran a set for Suffren. She drove to the rim but had her layup blocked out of bounds with 2.2 on the shot clock.
That led to a scramble play, where the ball fell to Suffren at the foul line. She threw up a quick jumper before the shot clock expired, but it missed. However, Hokies forward Kilah Freelon soared in and grabbed the offensive board.
“I swear Kilah was flying through the air,” Baker said. “I saw the shot go up, I’m going in and here comes Kilah out of the air, just grabs it. We sat down at the timeout and I was like, ‘I don’t even know how you held onto that ball.’ I was in disbelief. But Kilah does that all the time at practice for us.”
That gave them another possession, and out of Duffy’s final timeout, Wenzel drove baseline and dumped it off to Baker, whose floater with 11.2 to play was the go-ahead bucket.
“We literally looked at each other in the fourth quarter and said, ‘We’ve got to take over this game,’” Baker said. “That’s kind of what we did.”
Down 69-68, the Tigers advanced the ball to the frontcourt but threw it out of bounds, and after Wenzel iced the game with two foul shots, Clemson had one final look at a tie but didn’t get a shot off as the buzzer sounded.
“The very last one was just to disguise a ball screen to get it back and throw it into Thompson,” Poppie said. “And they kind of blew the ball screen up and took us off balance, and we couldn’t get the throwback and swing it. But we panicked. You’ve got plenty of time with 11 seconds. … But their physicality of blowing up a ball screen, and in these moments, the crowd’s loud and we know we need it. We just did not execute the little things.”
It was the Hokies’ first 13-point comeback win since Jan. 7, 2024, vs. No. 3 NC State, when Cayla King’s pass set up Elizabeth Kitley’s game-winning layup at the buzzer. Both happened to be in attendance on Thursday night, too — King as a graduate assistant on Poppie’s staff, Kitley courtside with her sister, Raven, and former Tech forward Olivia Summiel.
They witnessed a show from the Hokies’ two-headed monster of Wenzel and Baker, who both scored 24 points. Wenzel was 8-for-14 from the field, 3-for-7 from behind the arc and 5-for-6 from the stripe with three rebounds, two assists and a block. Baker was 7-for-17 overall with two threes on four shots, a career-high eight foul shots on nine attempts and eight boards.
“I thought early in the game we did a really good job, like we were supposed to shade to that, knowing a two-man game is coming,” Poppie said. “We’re switching the ball screen to keep the ball in front because if you watch on film, a lot of times they get downhill and you’ve got to help, and then there comes a two-man game, and you’re pulled so far into your gaps.
“We weren’t trying to pull into gaps. We were going to stay in the two-man game, but we got so flat, and then they executed. But with that said, we got enough stops. We had to rebound. … But they’re obviously really good basketball players and a reason why they’ll compete to get their name in the tournament.”
It was a thrilling ending to an otherwise poor game from Virginia Tech. It struggled against Johnson-Matthews (20 points) and Thompson (16 points), both of whom exploited ball-screen coverages over the first 30 minutes and took over the game. Moore added 12 points for the Tigers, too.
The Hokies couldn’t slow anything down early, all while faltering against Clemson’s defense on the other end. After shooting 4-for-14 in the second quarter (28.6%), they improved to 5-for-9 in the third (55.6%), but it wasn’t until their defense consistently got stops that they had a fighting chance.
“I think we just pushed up a little bit more,” Wenzel said of Tech’s defense. “I think on Raven Johnson, she was getting us on that guard-post switch, just kind of bodying us, so we kind of decided to jump it a little bit, get her on her toes and just have her second-guess things, and I think that went well. And I think we scrambled out of things well, kind of doubling in the post a little bit more, and just putting bodies on people and boxing [out].”
It’s the second straight meeting that came down to the wire after Mackenzie Nelson willed Tech to a 78-76 victory in Littlejohn Coliseum in last year’s regular-season finale.
The win over the Tigers was crucial for the Hokies’ postseason hopes, too. They entered the day as the second team out of the NCAA Tournament, per ESPN’s Charlie Crème, while Clemson was the last team in the field.
The result also set the table nicely for Tech, which travels to Wake Forest on Sunday before hosting Pitt on Thursday. The Demon Deacons (12-8, 2-6 ACC, No. 116 in NET) were off Thursday while the Panthers (8-13, 1-7, No. 248) lost 84-46 at Virginia.
If the Hokies can take care of business in their next two, they’ll enter next Sunday’s Commonwealth Clash against the Cavaliers with a 17-5 overall record and a 7-3 mark in the league. The final eight-game stretch is brutal, but they have the opportunity to put themselves in a good position over the next week.
Box Score: Virginia Tech 71, Clemson 68