BLACKSBURG, Va. – Right before Virginia Tech took the court last night against the heavily-favored Terrapin women’s basketball team, a fog machine that was part of the Hokies’ pregame introduction blew a heavy steam that wafted over the No. 5 Terps as they were shooting around the hoop near where the Hokies made their entrance.

Several Terps had to fan the mist away from their faces as they continued to warm up, clearly annoyed by the situation.

Once the game began, the No. 5 Terps (24-2, 8-1 ACC) needed to overcome their biggest deficit of the season and play an overtime game against a team that is winless in the ACC just to avoid getting smoked.

Down by as many as 21 points in the first half, the Terps trailed until the final three minutes of the game and didn’t take their first lead until almost midway through the only overtime in a stunningly close 74-71 win.

“In our locker room right now, we feel like we lost,” assistant coach Daron Park said. “But obviously at the end of the day, we’re thrilled that we got the W.”

The Hokies (13-10, 0-8 ACC) had lost seven of their previous eight games entering last night, but they shocked the Terps with a 22-2 run off the opening tip.

The Terps shot 1-for-7 and committed eight turnovers during the run, while the Hokies scored almost at will, making their first six shots and scoring several times on easy layups after they beat the Terps down the floor in transition.

“They had the effort from the opening tip,” Park said. “This is probably the first game this year where it seemed like every turnover hurt us. They did a wonderful job of capitalizing on that.”

Though they may not admit it, the Terps looked like they didn’t know what had just happened, how it happened or what they should do next.

“They came out extremely inspired,” said junior guard Kristi Toliver, who scored 19 of her game-high 28 points in the second half and overtime. “We get everybody’s best shot, so it was no surprise getting Virginia Tech’s best hit, and they came out on fire.”

The Hokies would stretch their lead to 31-10 with 10:13 left in the first half before the Terps mounted the beginnings of their comeback.

With Virginia Tech’s shooting starting to go cold – they missed eight consecutive shots and later seven consecutive shots – the Terps began to chip away at the deficit.

The Hokies lead was down to 39-29 at halftime.

“Sometimes it takes getting hit in the face a few times before you wake up and you start to play with a sense of urgency,” Park said.

The teams played evenly for most of the second half, and the Terps didn’t trail by more than 12 or fewer than six until there were six minutes remaining in regulation.

That’s when the Terps made their final push.

Senior forward Crystal Langhorne’s one-handed floater from inside the paint evened the game at 60-60 with 2:54 remaining, the first tie since the Hokies’ opening basket, capping a 12-2 run.

After the Hokies went back up by two, junior forward Marissa Coleman drove fearlessly to the basket on the Terps’ last possession of regulation, making a tough layup to tie it at 62-62 with 11 seconds left, eventually forcing the overtime.

“The play that we originally planned on running broke down, so I just knew we had to get a shot up,” Coleman said. “I had their big girl on me, so I just decided to take it to the basket [and] finished with power.”

In the extra period, senior forward Laura Harper’s put-back layup after a missed three-pointer by senior guard Ashleigh Newman gave the Terps their first lead of the game at 66-64 with 3:12 to go, and the Terps never trailed again.

Toliver and Coleman combined to go 6-for-6 from the free throw line in the last 26 seconds to preserve the lead, and the Terps snuck out of town with the win.

“We were talking about it in the locker room,” Langhorne said. “If we would have lost, it just would have been very disappointing. Very, very disappointing.”

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