{"id":2174,"date":"2011-03-02T22:23:28","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T03:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=2174"},"modified":"2011-03-02T22:23:28","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T03:23:28","slug":"thanks-ladies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=2174","title":{"rendered":"Thanks Ladies!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is an avalanche of exciting news all over the JMU sports landscape right now.\u00a0 Bridgeforth Stadium is looking incredible<\/a>, the baseball team is on fire<\/a> to start the season and receiving votes in the national polls, softball poleaxed <\/a>Georgetown today,\u00a0of course it’s tournament week for Men’s hoops, and national #9 Women’s Lacrosse took out\u00a0<\/a>Virginia Tech\u00a0today, but really tonight was all about one team and four impressive young women.<\/p>\n

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Bravo!<\/p><\/div>\n

Senior night for Women’s Basketball marked the last game in the ‘Burg for the storied quartet of Dawn Evans, Jalissa Taylor, Lauren Jimenez, and Courtney Hamner.\u00a0 You can read about the eyepopping stats for this group over at JMU Sports<\/a>, but it’s no stretch at all to say this senior class rivals almost any group in JMU Athletics history of any gender in any sport for what they meant to the program, not to mention sheer brilliance on the court.\u00a0 This group finally took down ODU last year and brough the CAA title back to the Convo for the first time in decades, not to mention putting in an appearance in the Big Dance and looking that direction again!\u00a0 And it’s not like any one of this group is an afterthought or just a crowd favorite like you often see on Senior Night.\u00a0 Taylor has turned into the most consistent rebounder and all-around player on the squad, the Dukes are at their best when Jimenez is healthy and getting consistent touches, Hamner is a sharpshooter of the highest order, and Ms. Evans is, simply, a legend.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, they also played a game tonight.\u00a0 And not just any game, but a “sort of” important one in which they were battling fellow CAA powerhouse UNCW for the regular season title.\u00a0 And these four did not disappoint!\u00a0 The Dukes locked up the #1 seed in next week’s tournament in Upper Marlboro (Show Place Arena for you DC area Dukes) by coming from behind in thrilling fashion to beat the Seahawks 79-77.\u00a0 And guess which Dukes shone brightest this evening?\u00a0 Yes that’s rhetorical.\u00a0 Jimenez set her new career high with a game-high 31 points and Dawn Evans broke the all-time CAA scoring mark with 2583 points, surpassing Drexel’s Gabriela Marginean’s 2581.\u00a0 Needless to\u00a0say, the Dukes need every one of those points tonight.\u00a0 Not a bad way to wrap up a career in Harrisonburg.\u00a0 Now let’s hope they’ve got two more runs in each of the impending tournaments in ’em.\u00a0 Take a bow ladies and please accept thanks from a couple guys who didn’t know a thing about WBB when this project started and now are sincerely going to miss all four of you!<\/p>\n