The Lady Jags took it on the chin tonight, losing their season opener to the Lady Generals on the Washington-Lee court. Coach Pritchett's team endured some wide pendulum swings tonight. Perhaps the most positive aspect of this defeat was that the Jags finished so strongly to raise their hopes for riding this momentum into the remaining two games of the first week of the 2016-17 campaign.

Falls Church opened the game with three short and mid-range baskets within the first half of the opening quarter, one by sophomore guard Sierra Kennard, another by junior point guard Rasha Benhamida, and the third by the youngest member of the team -- freshman starting guard Amari Faust -- to take a 6-0 lead past the midway point of the quarter. That was the only highlight for the next 18 minutes of court time. W&L went on a deadly 25-to-2 run: 10-1 to end the first quarter, then 7-0 for the entire second quarter to take a ten-point lead into the locker room at intermission, and then 8-1 to carry a 25-8 lead well into the third quarter. The Lady Jag defense played decent throughout their scoring drought, but their offense went so cold that icicles draped from the rim. At the lowest ebb of the game they had failed to land a basket after 20 consecutive attempts, over half were missed three-pointers.

Finally, after sinking a handful of free throws as their only points for nearly seven minutes of the third quarter, Falls Church's offense woke up, sparked by a great defensive play. Leah Shaw converted her fourth steal of the game into a lay-up-and-one conversion which was quickly followed by Rasha Benhamida's reverse layup. The positive juice flowed throughout the fourth quarter as the Lady Jags sunk six more baskets  by Shaw, Benhamida and Faust and matched it with six more swished free throws by the same trio and an additional one by Katie Ngo, evaporating the icicles on this 20-point red-hot, fourth-quarter run. (In fact, the Lady Jags landed 30 points in the final 13 minutes of the game!) Unfortunately, the Lady Generals' 13 points in the fourth quarter were more than enough to secure their win.

The Lady Jags allowed too many open looks while on defense and gave away several rebounds to W&L's offense; the Lady Generals exchanged those gifts for points, coming away with a healthy mix of two and three-point baskets and free throws throughout the entire game. Overall, the Lady Jags answered with less than a dozen  baskets -- including just one 3-pointer for a team that averaged five of them a game last season. Falls Church was especially successful at the penalty stripe tonight, hitting 14 of 21 free throws. But then again, the fact that three more free throws struck pay dirt than field goals is the reason why this one ended with the Lady Jags leaving the court with the second letter from W&L rather than the first.

Scoring Summary: Leah Shaw, 12 points; Rasha Benhamida, 10 points; Amari Faust, 9 points; Sierra Kennard, 5 points; Katie Ngo, 1 point.