VIRGINIA BEACH -- It was difficult to tell the winning team from the losing team Wednesday at the Jane P. Batten Student Center.

While the host Virginia Wesleyan College women's basketball team walked off the court with a 58-50 Old Dominion Athletic Conference victory, there weren't as many smiles on the Marlins' faces as there were on the WildCats of Randolph College.

The reason? Randolph, which trailed by 31 points at halftime, came back in the second half to take advantage of a VWC team that could not get shots to fall.  While the Marlins put up 28 second half attempts, including nine from three-point range, only six shots dropped through the net. None were triples.

That was the exact opposite in the first half when the Marlins (14-8, 9-4) came out on a torrid shooting pace, hitting their first seven shots...all triples.  By halftime it looked as though the Marlins were in position to make a run at the VWC record for triples in a game, as the Marlins knocked down nine three-pointers in the half en route to opening up a 42-11 lead.

Randolph (3-18, 1-12) came back in the second half and started to pick away at the lead, outscoring VWC 8-0 in the first five minutes, which included a triple from Brianna Lowery.  While Randolph hit 3-of-12 attempts in that run, Virginia Wesleyan missed on eight attempts.

Sophomore Andrea Paphites (Virginia Beach/Princess Anne) hit a jumper with 12:53 remaining to end VWC's scoreless start from the field, but the Marlins could not get back into an offensive rhythm.  That benefited Randolph, which started to get some big shots, including triples from Bonnie Bishop (Fairfax/Trinity Christian), Abigail Bullins (Asheboro, N.C./Asheboro) and Emilee Dunton (Forest/Brookville) to cut into the spread.

But, it still wasn't enough as VWC's strong first half carried the Marlins to the win.

Sophomore Sarah Seipp (Gaithersburg, Md./Gaithersburg) and Paphites led all scoring with 10 points each. Sophomore Nancy Kelly (Phoenix, Md./Dulaney) finished with eight points for the Marlins.

Randolph was led by Chelsea Tyler (Richmond/Henrico) with nine points and Bullins with eight.  Randolph out-rebounded VWC 48-33, led by Allie Druffel (Centreville/Westfield) with 11 rebounds.  Brittany Glasco (Fredericksburg/Massaponax) and Paphites led VWC with seven rebounds each.

Glasco finished with a game-high five assists and junior Symonne Newsome (Reistertown, Md./St. Paul's School for Girls) recorded a game-high four steals.

Virginia Wesleyan competes again on Saturday, Feb. 9 in ODAC action at Roanoke College starting at 1 p.m.

--AMDG--