Eley finds shooting touch in GMU's loss

FAIRFAX — The idea of wearing a soft cast worried Brittany Eley. But the broken metacarpal bone in her left hand just wouldn’t heal on its own so George Mason University’s sophomore guard figured she really didn’t have a choice.
If she wanted to play this season, Eley knew she’d have to deal with a little inconvenience — even if it meant learning to shoot with a protective support shielding the surgically-implanted metal plate that doctors used to repair her damaged limb.
“I have to wear that until who knows when,” Eley said. “It will be a while.”
And Eley is fine with that now.
A few days ago, at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, the former Westlake High School star was more inclined to fret. She missed all seven of her field goal attempts in her first game of the season for the Patriots and wondered if the cast might be a nuisance after all.
But Eley doesn’t feel that way any more. On Sunday afternoon, she hopped off the bench three minutes into the first half of Mason’s 69-52 loss to Virginia Tech and rediscovered the shooting touch that once made her a two-time Southern Maryland Athletic Conference player of the year.
The first shot Eley took came from well beyond the 3-point arc near the right sideline and it swished through the hoop for her initial basket of the season. In one soft flick of the wrist, the magic was back.
“When I hit that first shot it made me feel really good,” Eley said. “It gave me my confidence back.”
That 0-for-7 performance against UMBC is now pretty much an afterthought. Eley hit 6 of 9 shots against the Hokies — three of them from 3-point range — and wound up matching her career-high with 15 points in just 26 minutes.
“She’s a kid who can make an impact for us without a doubt,” Mason coach Jeri Porter said. “The first game she might have been a little nervous and tried to do too much. But tonight she hit some big shots for us. We’re excited about having her in the lineup the next couple of years.”
Eley is excited, too. Though she’d prefer to be on the floor with the full use of both hands, she is making the most of her opportunity as the Patriots (0-4) attempt to rebuild a program that finished tied for last place in the Colonial Athletic Association last season.
After starting 15 games as a freshman, she figured to challenge for a starting spot in Porter’s “inside-out” offensive system before she injured her hand during the first week of the school year.
“It was very disappointing that it happened when it did. I just kept waiting for it to heal and it never did,” Eley said. “I had surgery three weeks ago and hopefully my recovery will be quicker now.”
The Patriots will need more big nights from Eley if they hope to surpass last season’s 9-21 record. Even that wasn’t enough against the undefeated Hokies, who got 19 points from guard Lindsey Biggs and shot 45 percent from the field to improve to 4-0.
“It’s good to be part of this rebuilding program,” Eley said. “We’re on the up, even though it doesn’t look like it. You can see progress with the heart and hustle that we’re showing compared to last year.”
In front of a season-high crowd of 959 fans, the Patriots showed some moxie against a superior ACC foe. Sophomore Brittany Poindexter, one of the smallest players on the court at 5-foot-8, led Mason with a career-high 12 rebounds and senior center Brittney Wilkins scored 12 points — her second consecutive double-digit performance.
But the bigger, deeper Hokies received at least one point from 10 players and used a trapping, half-court defense to limit the Patriots to 33.3-shooting.
“We’re asking these kids to do things differently than they have in the past so we’re very pleased with the effort we’re getting,” Porter said. “The key, while we’re searching for a win, is to keep everybody positive. It’s kind of hard to stay up when you’re not winning.”