PITTSBURGH – Wumi Agunbiade recorded her fifth double-double of the season with game-highs 18 points and a season-high 15 rebounds as the Duquesne women’s basketball team tied its longest winning streak of the season – eight games – after a 62-58 victory over James Madison on Sunday afternoon at the Palumbo Center.
Ten of Agunbiade’s points came from the foul line, as she set a Duquesne record with 18 free throw attempts. April Robinson scored 14, Belma Nurkic 11 and Jocelyn Floyd 10 for Duquesne who improves to 9-1 on season.
JMU (3-6) was led by Jasmine Gill with 16 points, Kerry Burkholder with 15 and Tarik Hislop with 13.
The game got off to a very slow start as both teams were scoreless (combined shooting 0-14 and 9 turnovers) until Nurkic hit a 3-pointer from the right wing with 14:20 to play in the first half. James Madison did not score any points until a Hislop foul shot at 13:24. JMU missed its first 10 shots before a Burkholder 3-pointer with 11:44 remaining.
Duquesne, who led from beginning-to-end, took a 10-point advantage after Robinson’s 3-pointer at 4:50 made the score 22-12.
With 1:50 remaining, Ahjah Hall’s free throw doubled-up the score at 32-16. Nurkic would follow with a pair of free throws to give DU its largest lead of the game at 18 points. Gill’s foul shots would send the game into halftime with Duquesne leading 34-18.
JMU came out of the gates in the second half by scoring seven straight points to cut the deficit to 9 in the first 90 seconds of the second half. Duquesne would build its lead back up to 15 points at 52-37after Floyd’s layup midway through the half.
A Gill jumper with 6:32 got JMU within single-digits at 54-46, but DU would score five of the game’s next six point to lead by 13 – 60-47 after Floyd’s layup with 3:14 remaining.
That would be the last field goal of the game for Duquesne as James Madison would go on a 10-0 run to make it a one possession game at 60-57 with 44 seconds remaining.
Agunbiade missed the front end of the 1-and-1 with 25 seconds to play. Hislop’s 3-point attempt with 15 seconds remaining was off to the left and rebounded by Robinson. She was fouled with 8.8 seconds to play and converted both foul shots to ice the game at 62-57.
Duquesne travels to #25/22 West Virginia (6-2) on Thursday night for a 7:00 p.m. game against the Mountaineers. The game will be broadcast locally on ROOT Sports and simulcast on ESPN3.
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