No. 22 NC State falls at home to No. 11 Virginia Tech
No. 22 NC State made multiple runs, mostly behind Diamond Johnson’s team-leading 16 points bolstered by timely shots from deep, but No. 11 Virginia Tech answered with its own offensive explosions throughout the night. The Hokies built a wire-to-wire lead and defeated the Wolfpack 73-61 Monday night in the annual Play4Kay game.
Opposing point guard Georgia Amoore was on fire all night, leading the Hokies with 27 points and hitting five threes. After the game, the guard noted that the Pack was not executing the double team off of the pick and roll, which she took advantage of.
Head coach Wes Moore elaborated on that error in the post-game press conference.
“We were supposed to be trapping pick on the ball, and we didn’t get that done,” Moore said. “Amoore went off. I told them, saying I should have called timeout a whole lot sooner and tried to regroup the forces a little bit.”
Elizabeth Kitley was a force in the paint for the visitors, scoring 25 points and grabbing 14 rebounds. This was Virginia Tech’s first-ever win in Raleigh.
Monday’s Play4Kay game honored cancer survivors at halftime and raised donations for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. Yow coached for 34 seasons at NC State and is the winningest coach in program history.
“That was coach Yow,” Moore said. “She was always giving, always cared about other people and, even in her passing, she’s still doing great things and trying to help others, so that’s pretty neat.”
Virginia Tech opened the game working the ball inside to Kitley, a 6-6 center who was tough to stop throughout the night and finished the opening period with 8 points. The Hokies jumped out to a 13-2 lead early. NC State answered with an 8-0 run later in the quarter that got the deficit down to 3 points at one point.
The Wolfpack forced 5 turnovers, which led to 9 crucial points in transition. Johnson hit a pair of threes to lead the Wolfpack in the first quarter with 6 points, and the team finished the period trailing 22-18.
NC State’s offense could not find the same level of success in the second quarter, scoring just 10 points, and the Hokies held the hosts without a field goal for the final 4:22 of the half. The Pack’s only points during that time were a pair of Madison Hayes free throws. Virginia Tech took a 39-28 halftime lead.
Coming out of the break, NC State played its best offensive quarter of the game. Johnson scored 8 in the period and the Pack shot 50 percent. NC State’s defense forced a Hokie scoring drought that lasted more than 2 minutes, and the hosts cut the lead to 2 on an and-1 layup by River Baldwin.
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Amoore and Kitley dominated on the other end of the court, scoring 16 of the visitor’s 19 points in the period and building the lead back to 10.
Virginia Tech played some zone defense in the fourth quarter, and it disrupted NC State’s offense after a 20-point third period. The Wolfpack shot 35.7 percent in the final quarter and ended the matchup with a 12-point loss.
Johnson and Saniya Rivers, who recorded 10 points, were the only members of the program to reach double-figures.
“A very frustrating night,” Moore said. “I’ve got to do a better job. To be honest with you, we had two poor practices leading up to this, and we played kind of like we practiced.”
NC State drops to 16-7 on the year and 6-6 in the ACC. Monday’s loss is the program’s second-consecutive setback after Georgia Tech defeated the Pack last week.
The Wolfpack returns to the court Thursday, February 9, on the road against Wake Forest at 8 p.m. EST.
“We’re running out of time,” Moore said. “We’re 6-6 in the league now and, thanks to our beautiful friends at the ACC office, we’ve got four of the next five on the road, so we’ve got a tough stretch coming up.”
