3rd Quarter Slump Dooms Lady 'Stangs

For the second consecutive game, the George Mason High School girls basketball team was cursed with a disastrous third quarter. Unlike the last outing, the team’s goose-egg in the third quarter against Strasburg last Thursday proved fatal, the Mustangs falling to the Rams, 42-33 on the road.

Strasburg scored 18 unanswered points and forced 17 Mustang turnovers in a nine and a half minute stretch in the second half and led by as many as 14. Becky Roa (7) and Alex Pender (2) were the only Mustangs to score field goals in the contest. The loss drops Mason to 10-7 (2-3 in the Bull Run District).

Mason took an impressive 19-11 halftime lead with them into the locker room against the Bull Run District’s top team. If the Mustangs were going to compete seriously for the District title this year, the Rams were the team to beat—considering Mason lost to them at home earlier in the season.

“So far so good,” remarked head coach Dan Wilkie as the Mustangs headed to the locker room at halftime.

Strasburg showed an intense full-court press in the second half, forcing a bevy of Mason turnovers and miscues in general. Senior Becky Roa, assuming much of the team’s scoring load with sophomore Maggie O’Toole on the bench with an ankle injury, had to sit with four fouls toward the end of the period. Alex Pender, the team’s only other viable offensive threat in the game, wound up on the bench with multiple injuries throughout the second half. The Mustangs finished the third stanza with no points and 11 turnovers and were suddenly trailing the Rams 23-19.

Strasburg’s run kept going into the fourth as they scored 18 unanswered points. When Roa returned with 6:32 to play in the game, it was her free throw only 20 seconds later that broke the drought for the Mustangs. With two minutes left, Pender returned to the game after nursing an ankle injury and helped Mason pull within five with less than a minute to go, but it was too little too late.