The UNC Wilmington women’s basketball team won 80-77 Sunday afternoon in a tight game against William & Mary.

The win came after the 62-53 loss against Delaware this past Thursday, which ended the Seahawks’ five-game winning streak. UNCW improved to 14-8 overall and 7-4 in the CAA. The game included plenty of back-and-forth action. William & Mary was pulling ahead 10-8 as time-out was called at 14:03 by the Seahawks, eventually exceeding UNCW 17-11. The Seahawks were quick to catch up, ending the first half 40-34 despite William & Mary’s tight defensive line and numerous three-point shots. As the second half began, however, the Tribe came back and pulled ahead, 47-44.

Yet, the Seahawks were close behind, taking the lead with a strong field goal from Karneshia Garrett and a three-pointer by Alisha Andrews. The game was tight at the 7:45 mark of the second half. Both teams were knotted at 71 points apiece at the 3:20 mark. In the end, the Seahawks took the lead and kept it, finishing the game with a three-point advantage over William & Mary.

Junior Tawanna Lee stood out, scoring a total of 21 points in the game. “I’m a shooter; I just try to shoot the best I can,” Lee said. “I knew this was an important game, so I tried to be aggressive. If I see a teammate, I passed it. If I had the shot, I shot it.”

Sophomore Abria Trice and junior Ayoola Weaver helped out with rebounds, 10 and 16 each respectively, quickly regaining Seahawk possession of the ball. “First half, I just had my shot, and I knew that if I was wide open I’d take the shot,” Trice said. “But in the second, I just tried to keep my teammates open and let them take the shot.”

“I just had to have the mindset to rebound,” Weaver said. “I knew my teammates needed it, and I just tried to go after everything…even if I was trailing, I was going to try to use my athleticism to grab some points.”

Coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke commended Lee’s performance. “Tawanna really kept us in there, especially in the first half when we were struggling,” Cooper-Dyke said. “It took us forever to get us past the press and into the offense. Tawanna got us out of those messes with those three-point shooters. She was a leader tonight.”

Despite the positive outcome, Cooper-Dyke expressed disappointment in how the team handled the game. The Seahawks had a total of 20 turnovers. “I was very disappointed,” Cooper-Dyke said. “Disappointed in our effort, disappointed in our decision making, disappointed in how some of our kids seemed like they weren’t really into in playing…offensively, I didn’t think we did that poorly. But this was a game that, if we had executed it a little better…we could have won this comfortably.”

The players shared this feeling. “We weren’t focused,” Weaver said. “We weren’t mentally there… we had people here and there who were into it, but we have to have all five players there together.”

“They’re a great team,” Lee said of William & Mary. “I was pretty sure that, in the second half, they were going to put some wins together, because they are really a good team. But at the end of the day, we won.”

“We got out of here and we’re lucky to get away with the win,” Cooper-Dyke said. “(We need to) point out the good things, but also point out that we fouled unnecessarilyand let a three-point shooter geta wide open shot in a crucial moment of the game. We made bad decisions in crucial moments of the game. We didn’t post hard offensively, and we gave William & Mary every possible opportunity to post deep in the lane that they wanted. There are some things we need to work on, but I really feel lucky.”

UNCW will face off against Georgia State, Thursday in Atlanta.