Laurin Mincy reached a scoring benchmark on a night when Alyssa Thomas — the team’s top scorer— was playing more like a bench player.
Sophomore guard Laurin Mincy surpassed 400 points Monday night, scoring 20 points to propel the Terrapins to a 68-61 victory over Virginia at Comcast Center.
Coming off a six-point performance in Maryland’s first loss of the season Saturday at Miami, Mincy reached 411 points in her career while Thomas — who leads the team with 17.4 points per game — was held to just six points on 2 of 10 shooting.
“I definitely figured that I needed to step up because she wasn’t contributing like she usually does,” Mincy said after the game.
The back-and-forth first half featured five lead changes, as the Terrapins struggled to break Virginia’s 1-3-1 zone. But as the Cavaliers, who were limited with a small bench, began to wear down, Mincy attacked using pick-and-rolls and isolation moves.
The 6-foot guard tied the game at tied the game up at 30 with 3:07 remaining in the half to surpass the 400-point mark.
“She brought it tonight. She brought it on both ends of the court,” head coach Brenda Frese said. “I thought she got really aggressive going to the rim. She’s really hard to guard obviously when she can shoot the three and can attack off the bounce.”
The 3-pointer helped Maryland take a 36-32 lead into the locker room — a lead they would never relinquish.
“I thought we kind of wore them down in the second half,” Frese said.
As raindrops fell into puddles outside Comcast center, Virginia forward Chelsea Shine tied the game at 38 with 17:26 remaining. The forward finished with 12 points, while guards Lexie Gerson and Ataira Franklin added 15 and 14 respectively.
But Maryland reclaimed the lead and soon stretched it to nine after forward Lynetta Kizer hit a lay-up with 7:12 remaining. The 6-foot-4 center finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds for a double-double. Fellow center Alicia DeVaughn also contributed nine points and seven rebounds for the Terrapins.
Frese said that the Terrapins emphasized the importance of establishing a presence inside after its first loss of the season at Miami last Saturday.
“They were really, really good,” Frese said of her centers. “For us to be a team, we need to have inside-outside play. We can’t solely rely on our guards. And our bigs are too talented. We got to have that play.”
The Terrapins will next host ACC rival Wake Forest Thursday.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.