BY BRYCE KELLY, SPORTS STAFFER

A Kaitlyn Parker steal with 31 seconds left was key in the Bonnies’ 50-49 win over George Washington in the Reilly Center Wednesday night. With the win, the Bonnies improve to 11-9 overall and 3-6 in conference play. George Washington falls to 7-13 and 0-7 in conference play.  

Bonnies head coach Jessie Fleming was happy with Parker’s performance even with only 2 points.

“She’s +10 in 17 minutes. That says a ton,” Fleming said. “She came in ready to go. [Parker] was great tonight. That’s a person you really want to play with.” 

After the Parker steal, Asianae Johnson got the ball down one. Johnson took a contested step-back jumper with four seconds left. George Washington guard Essence Brown fouled Johnson and sent her to the line. Johnson made two free throws to win the game for the Bonnies. 

“We tried to run a high ball screen for [Johnson], but they did a good job so we went iso for (Johnson),” Fleming said. 

Johnson was the leading scorer for the Bonnies once again, leading the team with 20 points on 9-18 shooting from the field. This was Johnson’s seventh straight 20-point game for the Bonnies.  

“It was a hard 20 tonight,” Fleming said about Johnson’s scoring effort. “George Washington did a great job. They built a wall around her. I thought Essence Brown did a really good job on [Johnson] tonight. It caused her to force a little bit. She needed to spray the ball out a bit more.” 

“I feel like it was bound to happen,” Johnson said when asked about George Washington’s defensive focus. “Going against George Washington, they are a good defensive team. It was tough tonight.” 

Tori Harris was the only other Bonnie in double figures, scoring 15 points on 5-of-13 from the field and 2-of-7 from 3-point range. 

Although the Bonnies won, Fleming wasn’t happy with the offensive effort.

“I didn’t like the offense very much overall. We ran 12 different plays wrong. We’re not making the right reads. We settled too much,” Fleming said. 

The Bonnies shot 35% from the field and 27% from three-point range. George Washington shot 42% from the field and 25% from 3-point range.  

Fleming was concerned about George Washington’s balanced scoring so far this season. “It kept me up,” Fleming said. “These kids, they can all score. It’s not like us where who do you stop? Asianae Johnson. You’re telling the girls to contest and contain everybody.” 

George Washington was not balanced tonight as Maxine Engel lead the team with 19 points on 8-of-10 shooting from the field and 1-of-3 from 3 point range.  

Both Johnson and Fleming agreed execution needs to improve going into their next game versus Richmond. “I feel like we were really slow tonight,” Johnson said. “We could’ve beat this team by 15-20 points. That’s what we need to do in order to make a statement to the other teams in the league. They are 0-7. We should blow that team out.”