Juhász Scores 27 in West Palm Beach Finale
12/21/2018 2:31:02 PM | Women's Basketball
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Dorka Juhász scored a season-high 27 points and grabbed eight rebounds but Virginia Tech pulled away with a late run for an 81-73 victory on Friday at the West Palm Beach Invitational at Keiser University.
Juhász was 10-of-14 from the floor including 3-of-3 from long range. She also dished-out a pair of assists.
Jensen Caretti had her best game of the season, finishing with 11 points while point guard Carmen Grande had nine points, a season-high nine assists and five rebounds.
The story of the game was Virginia Tech’s three-point shooting as the Hokies were 15-of-25 (60 percent) for the game. That allowed them to answer every Buckeye run. Taylor Emery led VT with 27 points.
The Buckeyes themselves were a season-best 9-of-16 from deep (56 percent) and also had a season-low 10 turnovers.
Head coach Kevin McGuff made a change to the starting lineup, inserting Najah Queenland in hopes of avoiding falling into an early hole which has plagued the Buckeyes recently. While Queenland didn’t have a huge impact in the scoring, the Buckeyes responded by tying their highest scoring opening quarter of the season.
Virginia Tech made 5-of-6 threes to open the game and took a 15-11 lead but the Buckeyes withstood that spurt and answered with one of their own than to some hot long range shooting of their own. Behind seven points from Juhász, OSU would lead 26-20 after the first.
The Buckeyes then opened the second quarter on a 7-0 run to take a 33-20 lead and eventually took a 44-28 lead with two minutes left in the half. Virginia Tech closed the first half on an 8-0 run thanks to a pair of long threes and the Buckeye lead with 44-36 at the break.
The Hokies continued to chip away as they reminded hot from distance. The Buckeye lead would be cut to just three at 61-58 through three quarters. Virginia Tech used an 11-0 run midway through the fourth to take its first lead since early in the first quarter and led 75-68 with just under four minutes to play.
Carly Santoro answered with a three from the wing to make it 75-71 and then the teams traded empty possessions over the next two minutes. That was crucial for the Buckeyes as Tech hit all six of its free throws in the final minute to seal the victory.
Up next
The Buckeyes have concluded non-conference play and after breaking for Christmas, the will open up defense of their back-to-back Big Ten titles at Purdue on Friday, Dec. 28.
