Coach Kay Yow and her N.C. State team lost to Wake Forest 65-64 Saturday.
WINSTON-SALEM — After a 0-9 start to the game shooting the ball, Wake Forest point guard Cotelia Bond-Young nailed a turn-around jumper and was fouled with less than five seconds left to beat the N.C. State in Winston-Salem on Saturday by a score of 65-64.
“I just credit Wake Forest who played very aggressively on defense, really ran the floor well, and when they got really down, they just kept doing their thing as hard as they could and it paid off for them,” coach Kay Yow said. “They really got back in the game, took the lead and made a great play at the end of the game to win it.”
With just over a minute to go on the clock, State (10-4, 1-1) had a four-point lead when a foul by Tiffany Stansbury sent Wake (8-5, 1-1) to the line to shave the lead to two points. On the ensuing possession, Ashley Key made a three-pointer with 46 seconds left to put the Wolfpack up by five, but a traveling penalty erased the points.
The Demon Deacons then came down the floor and missed a shot, then fouled Key after the rebound. Key missed the front end of the one and one with 17.4 seconds on the clock, which set up the winning shot.
“I thought we had a really great shot at pulling the game out at the point because we had gone down but we had come back and taken the momentum and all and I was disappointed with the way we played down the stretch, particularly that last minute,” Yow said. “We took a quick shot when we didn’t have to and we committed several mistakes that cost us to lose the game really.”
The Pack started the game up by a score of 22-9 and had a three-point lead at halftime. The lead evaporated in the second half though due to costly turnovers and a hobbled Stansbury, who landed awkwardly on her ankle, and missed a few minutes at the beginning of the half.
“I thought we started the game well. We were really in control and really playing well. We subbed some and lost part of our lead, but I think Wake scored 23 points off our turnovers and that’s something really disappointing to me is the number of turnovers we had today,” Yow said. “We’ve really been attuned to taking care of the ball this season and today it just wasn’t there for us.”
State had won 17 of the past 18 games against its ACC foe, including having won at Winston-Salem in nine straight contests dating back to the 1995-1996 season. The victory was a career first for Demon Deacon coach, Mike Petersen, against Yow.
“I’ve spoken all week about how important each ACC game is, how we have to take them one game at a time, and I tried to tell them that Wake had a game at Duke that once it got that way, it was just gone,” Yow said. “I tried to explain that to the team and let them know that this would be a different Wake Forest team today.”