In a matchup against former WVU women’s basketball head coach Mike Carey, who is now an assistant at Central Florida, the Mountaineers defeated the Knights 76-59 on a special day for West Virginia guard J.J. Quinerly.
The first quarter was tightly contested, with West Virginia holding a slim 19-16 lead heading into the second. Jordan Harrison led the Mountaineers with seven points in the first, shooting three-of-four from the field.
The second quarter started with WVU committing multiple fouls sending UCF to the line, allowing them to tie the game at 19.
As the quarter went on the Mountaineers would create partial separation, but struggled offensively overall turning the ball over seven times in the second quarter alone.
In the first half, West Virginia shot just 3-9 from three with Lauren Fields making all three on four attempts.
Heading into the locker room, WVU held a 35-29 lead.
Starting the third the Mountaineers went on a 6-0 run to increase their lead to 12, 41-29.
West Virginia would then go on another run beginning in the middle of the third quarter increasing their lead to 20, 53-33.
The Mountaineers outscored UCF 25-9 in the third quarter as they continued to pull away completely, leading 58-38 going into the fourth quarter.
Central Florida made their first three-point attempt in the fourth quarter with just over four minutes left in the contest, after 12 unsuccessful attempts.
In the fourth quarter, Quinerly reached a career milestone in scoring her 1,000th point, she had 21 in the game with four assists.
UCF out-rebounded WVU 42-30, but shot just 28.6% from the field and turned the ball over 26 times.
Quinerly was the leading scorer for the Mountaineers, with Harrison close behind with 19.
West Virginia gets back on track after dropping two straight, improving their record to 14-2, they will face Houston at home on Jan. 17 looking to build off a dominant performance on Saturday.
