Women’s basketball, wrestling and diving teams stayed busy over break

One game — 121 points.

That was the record for most points in a single game — set by the 1985 North Carolina women’s basketball team just one short year before coach Syvlia Hatchell would take her place at the helm of the program. That was the number to beat — the landmark to surpass.

And that was the statistic that this year’s team was told at half-time of its 124-41 record-breaking drubbing of New Orleans Dec. 16.

It was the second of five games the Tar Heels would claim during winter break, and the largest margin of victory in program history.

“The first half, whenever we had like 72 (points), I looked up at the scoreboard and was like ‘Wow, that’s a lot of points in the first half,” said freshman guard Jessica Washington.

“Just thinking that we could get like 140 if we go the same rate in the second half.”

And that’s almost exactly what they did.

Freshmen Diamond DeShields and Allisha Gray paved the way for the Tar Heels with 20 points apiece, while six Tar Heels racked up double-digit scoring figures.

But the holiday dominance was far from ending.

Two days later the Tar Heels defeated South Carolina 74-66 under the direction of freshmen Stephanie Mavunga and DeShields who tallied 20 and 17 points, respectively.

Five days later they broke 100 points again and capped off 2013 with a 103-71 victory against High Point with their coach watching in person for the first time since she was diagnosed with leukemia in October.

“I know she gets to see us play on the computer and on the TV,” Washington said. “But just being able to see her up there is exciting for the team.”

And 12 days after that — after a break for the holidays — the team was back at it — pulling out a three-point victory against James Madison 74-71 Jan. 2, before falling to Maryland 79-70 Sunday for the last time as ACC foes.

“It’s about getting better,” associate head coach Andrew Calder said earlier in December. “We’re young as we know, but I don’t make excuses for them. They’re talented with high basketball IQs.”

Wrestling

Last year he was an All-American — an NCAA competitor, an ACC champion. This year, he’s showing no signs of slowing down.

With two meets during winter break, junior wrestler Evan Henderson won the 141-pound title at the Reno Tournament of Champions Dec. 22 and found a fifth place finish in the Southern Scuffle Jan. 1 and 2 after falling in the quarterfinals to the top wrestler in his weight class.

His efforts led UNC to a 97 point, third-place finish in the Reno Tournament of Champions and a 32-point, 18th place finish in the Southern Scuffle, where more than half of those points came from him alone .

While Henderson was the sole competitor to place for the Tar Heels in the Southern Scuffle , he certainly wasn’t alone in the Reno Tournament of Champions.

Nathan Kraisser found a third-place finish in the 125-pound weight class, Troy Heilmann placed sixth in the 133-pound group, and Nick Heilmann and Christian Barber placed third and fourth, respectively, in their 149 weight class. Alex Utley finished sixth in the 184-pound group .

Swimming

After a ninth place finish in the Janis Hape Dowd Nike Cup in November, a record-setting performance, and a month removed from competition, Jack Nyquist is back.

Nyquist, a freshman, took to the diving board again for the North Carolina swimming and diving team in the USA Diving Winter Nationals Dec. 17, 18 and 20, where he dove with Michael Mosca of Harvard, and finished 10th of 15 with 350.67 points.

Both the men’s and women’s teams just returned from a spring-training trip to Naples, Fla., and the women will enter the spring with a No. 9 ranking in the CSCAA coaches poll.

sports@dailytarheel.com