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The Washington and Lee University women’s basketball team made a furious fourth-quarter rally, but a 3-pointer from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh’s Jenna Jorgensen pushed the Titans past the Generals 58-55, in the first round of the NCAA Division III Tournament on Friday night. It was the end of a historic season for the Generals (22-7).
UWO would lose to Ohio Northern University 71-60 in the second round on Sunday, ending its season at 20-9.
With 14 seconds left in Friday’s contest, the Generals, coming off winning the Old Dominion Athletic Conference title the previous weekend in Salem, were up 55-53, and Jorgensen missed a pair of free throws to give the Generals the ball back. However, the Titans forced a quick turnover on the ensuing inbounds play and Jorgensen sank a triple with 3.0 on the clock to give the Titans the final lead of the game.
UWO had seized a commanding 49-36 lead after a Jorgensen triple opened the fourth-quarter scoring. W&L’s Mary Schleusner then hit back-to-back shots to spark a 14-0 run that spanned 4:33 and gave the Generals a 50-49 lead with 3:30 left. The teams then exchanged scores over the next two minutes before Schleusner hit a jumper, drew a foul and made her and-one shot to push the W&L lead to 5553.
Both sides had a slow start to the game, but the Generals owned a 12-10 lead through the first 10 minutes of play after holding UWO to just 4-of-21 shooting. The Titans opened the second quarter on an 11-3 run to move ahead by four points, the teams then scored 12 points each over the final 5:15 of the stanza, and UWO led 30-26 at halftime.
Schleusner led W&L with 19 points, 21 rebounds and six blocks. It was her third game this season in which she eclipsed the 20-rebound mark and just the fifth 20-rebound performance by a single player in program history. Schleusner concluded her impressive rookie campaign with the second-most blocks in a season in program history (90) and the most rebounds in a season (344).
W&L’s Hanna Malik scored 11 points and connected on a pair of 3-pointers. Those two makes put her final season total at 72, which tied Taylor Casey (class of 2020) for the fourth most in a season. W&L’s Sarah Zimmerman added eight points and pulled down eight rebounds, making all six of her free throw attempts.
Over the course of the 2022-23 women’s basketball season, the Generals tied two program records and rewrote the record book on 18 occasions across individual and team game and season marks. Two of the team records included most wins in a season (22) and singleseason winning percentage (.759). The Generals also shattered the season blocks record, finishing the campaign with 241 (previous record - 142). At an average of 8.3 per game, the Generals remain the top team in all of Division III in both total blocks and average.
