William & Mary women’s basketball coach Erin Dickerson Davis said her team is at its best when everyone gets involved. They proved her point Saturday in the semifinals of the Coastal Athletic Association tournament.
Guards Bella Nascimento and Monet Dance led the way with 20 and 18 points, respectively, but they had plenty of help as the No.9 Tribe upset No.4 Drexel 76-54 at CareFirst Arena, home of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics. They were the lowest seed to reach the tournament semifinals and are the lowest to reach the final.
“Wow. My team has really come together,” Davis said.
The Tribe (14-18) will play No.3 Campbell in Sunday’s championship game. It’s just the Tribe’s second appearance in the title game. Their only previous showing came in 1993 as the seventh seed and resulted in a 65-51 loss to Old Dominion University. The seventh seed has won the past two CAA titles.
“March is crazy as we know, and momentum is a funny thing. We caught some fire early,” Davis said. “We came in as the lowest seed in every game that we played so our mentality was what do you have to lose at this point? Just give it all you’ve got. Don’t leave here with any regrets. Let’s not go home thinking, ‘I should have, could have’ done something.”
They aren’t going home yet, and it’s because they received contributions up and down their lineup. To wit:
 Seven players logged at least 15:33 minutes of game time, and it would have been eight if Cassidy Geddes hadn’t gotten injured.
 Kayla Rolph (8), Kayla Beckwith (3) and Natalie Fox (2) combined for just 13 points, but 19 rebounds, with Rolph grabbing a team-high seven, followed by Beckwith and Fox six each as the Tribe won the board battle 43-31.
 In the second quarter, when the Tribe went ahead for good, Rebekah Frisby-Smith had a 3-pointer, two rebounds, one assist, one block and drew three offensive fouls.
 Anahi-Lee Cauley had all eight of her points in the third quarter, almost outscoring Drexel for the 10 minutes, and had a hand in every point in a 13-0 run that gave the Tribe a 56-34 advantage with 1:05 left in the quarter.
 Five players had at least one 3-pointer as the Tribe made a season high 12 (on 22 attempts.) That’s coming one day after going 11 for 19 in an upset of top-ranked North Carolina A&T in overtime.
 They had 19 assists on 28 made field goals, with Dance having five and Nascimento four.
“Everybody was sharing the ball,” said Nascimento, a senior who transferred from Manhattan two years ago. “Every time that shot was going up, we knew it was going in.”
For the third consecutive day, the Tribe beat a team it lost to in the regular season. The Dragons topped the Tribe in overtime Feb. 9. In that game, Drexel (17-13) got 20 points from graduate guard Cara McCormack, 15 from senior guard Amaris Baker, and nine each from graduate guard Chloe Hodges and sophomore forward Deja Evans.
“When we have had multiple people scoring, we have been pretty effective,” said Drexel coach Amy Mallon, whose team beat Monmouth in overtime in the quarterfinals.
That wasn’t the case Saturday. Baker, first-team all-CAA, had 20 (nine in the first quarter) and Evans 16 (just four in the second half), but McCormack was held to nine and Hodges was shut out.
“We needed other people to step up today,” Mallon said.
Just as the day before, the Tribe’s first three baskets were 3-pointers. Two by Nascimento and one by Geddes had the Tribe ahead 9-8. Drexel, the defending tournament champs as the No.7 seed, used an 8-0 run to take a 19-15 lead, but Dance closed the quarter with her first points of the game on a 3-pointer and the Tribe trailed 19-18 after the first 10 minutes.
When Nascimento, a second-team all-CAA selection, opened the second quarter with a jump shot just outside the paint, it gave the Tribe the lead for good and her twice as many points (10) in the game as she had against N.C. A&T. It also started a 16-2 run as the Tribe took a 34-21 lead. It was during that time that Frisby-Smith, a graduate forward, did most of her damage, and Fox, a freshman forward, had five of her rebounds.
W&M went the last 4:03 of the half without scoring, but Drexel didn’t score in the final 2:50. However, the Tribe’s lead, which was once 13, was just five at the break.
There was no panic by the Tribe players when Drexel made its run.
“We just talked about calming down,” said Davis, who has taken the Tribe to at least the CAA semifinals in two of her three years with the program. “We were rattled because they came at us hard. We kind of relaxed a little bit because we got tired and the lead had ballooned a little bit. We just had to regroup.”
Hodges said she and her teammates were feeling good with how the quarter ended.
“At halftime, we were obviously talking that it’s a two-possession game,” she said. “We started with a good amount of momentum in the third quarter, but as Amy said, they were red hot from the field.”
After the Dragons cut the deficit to 36-32, the Tribe answered with a 7-0 run. A driving layup by Baker ended the run, but Cauley, a senior forward, took things into her own hands as the Tribe scored 13 consecutive points for a 22-point lead with a little more than a minute left in the quarter. Cauley started it with a pair of jump shots, followed with assists on a layup and a 3-pointer by Nascimento, and finished it off with two free throws and another jumper.
The Tribe made 9 of 15 field goals (60 percent) in the quarter while holding the Dragons to 4 of 17 (23.5 percent).
“We got a lot of shots but unfortunately we didn’t make them,” Mallon said. “We certainly didn’t hit the ones we needed to today. We did everything we could today, credit to William & Mary, they played great.”
In the final 10 minutes, the Tribe’s lead was never fewer than 15 points and reached 24.
Davis said it came down to “everyone being locked in and believing.”
Dance, who was coming off a career-high 27 points and going 7 for 9 on 3-pointers against N.C. A&T, was 5 for 6 from the field, including 4 for 4 on 3-pointers, against Drexel. The guard also was 4 for 4 from the line and had two steals. She has had some injuries this season that have affected her aggressiveness.
“Monet is really good when she can just play and not think that she also battled injuries,” Davis said. “She had a couple concussions this season. I think because of that, it made her hold back.”
Geddes, a sophomore guard who tied a career-high with 26 points a day earlier, suffered a sprained ankle 2:06 into the second quarter and didn’t return, finishing with five points. Davis expects her to be ready to play in the championship game.
“She’s going to do whatever she can (rehab-wise) to be out there tomorrow,” Davis said.
Nascimento said Tribe players and staff are not surprised they have made it this far.
“We had no doubt,” she said, emphasizing the word “no.”
And they aren’t just content to be in the final.
“Our team is very ecstatic that we made the championship, but even though we can be happy today, tomorrow’s a new day,” she said. “Tomorrow, we have to come in with the same focus, same intensity, same passion, same grit so we can win the game.
“It’s not about making it. Yes, it’s awesome, but it’s about winning it.”