Virginia
Cal Women Beat Virginia for 22nd Win
Cal picked up its 22nd victory of the season with a 76-70 win over Virginia on Thursday night in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Cal (22-6, 10-5 ACC) has the most victories in a Golden Bears season since they went 24-10 in 2016-17. The victory also assured Cal of a first-round bye in the ACC tournament with three regular-season games remaining.
This is the first time Cal picked up a win in its first game of a two-game trip to the East Coast, as the travel has taken a toll on teams traveling from the West Coast in both men’s and women’s ACC basketball. And the Cal team’s travel to Virginia was not without problems, and it arrived behind schedule.
“I’m just really proud of the team,” Cal coach Charmin Smih said. “You know it’s kind of ironic, because this was our worst travel trip here getting in at 3 a.m. and not getting quality sleep, but
still showing up and being able to perform. I thought Virginia played really well. Kymora [Johnson] gave us some fits, but we adjusted, we responded, we fought through and I’m really proud of the team.”
Cal has just three games remaining before the ACC tournament, and the Bears continue to jockey for seeding position. Cal entered Thursday’s play tied with Georgia Tech for seventh place in the ACC standings. (See Notes below for why it’s important for the Golden Bears to earn a No. 7 seed rather than a No. 8 seed in the conference tournament.)
Ioanna Krimili and Michelle Onyiah led Cal with 18 points apiece on Thursday, and they provided the pivotal scoring for Cal in the fourth quarter.
Virginia (13-14, 5-10 ACC) led by a point early in the fourth quarter but Cal delivered the big plays down the stretch. Krimili nailed three-pointers on consecutive possessions to put the Bears ahead to stay 64-59 with 6:07 left in the game. Onyiah, who also contributed 11 rebounds, then scored Cal’s next seven points to keep the Bears ahead.
“That feels really good as a coach,” Smith said of the team’s poise in the fourth quarter. “They’re a special group, and they listen and they communicate with one another they trust each other. They trust us as a staff. And we were really good at executing when we needed to.”
Lulu Twidale clinched the win with a three-pointer with 12 seconds left, putting the Bears ahead by six. Twidale was 3-for-7 from three-point range and scored 15 points, while Krimili was 6-for-13 from long distance, increasing her Cal single-season record for three-pointers made to 82, 18 more than the previous record set by Jennifer Self in 1992. However, Twidale is just four three-pointers behind Krimili with 78 for the season.
Johnson score 24 points for Virginia, which is just 1-7 in ACC home games this season, but made things difficult for Cal on Thursday.
Cal shot just 39.4% for the game, but the Bears made 13 three-pointers. Cal shot better on three-point shots (43.3%) than it did on two-point attempts (12-of-33, 36.3%).
An odd third quarter ended with Cal holding a one-point lead at 56-55.
Cal trailed by five points at halftime, but scored the first 17 points of the third quarter to take a 12-point lead. But a few minutes later, Virginia reeled off 12 straight points to tie the game, and the Cavaliers took a 54-52 lead when Edessa Noyan made a three-pointer with 58 seconds left in the quarter.
After an Onyiah free throw closed the gap to a point, Cal took a 56-55 lead when Twidale scored with six seconds remaining.
Cal has just three games remaining before the ACC tournament, and the Bears continue to jockey for seeding position. Cal entered Thursday’s play tied with Georgia Tech for seventh place in the ACC standings. (See Notes below for why it’s important for the Golden Bears to earn a No. 7 seed rather than a No. 8 seed in the conference tournament.)
Virginia took a 35-30 lead at halftime, thanks to a bucket by Breona Hurd with one second left in the second quarter.
The Cavaliers committed just three first-half turnovers compared with seven by Cal, and that countered the Bears’ 24-16 advantage in rebounding.
Virginia’s Kymora Johnson led all scorers in the first half with 12 points..
Both teams started the game hot from long range. Cal started 4-for-5 on three-pointers, but Virginia was even better, going 4-for-4 from long distance before missing one. Virginia’s hot shooting helped the Cavaliers take a two-point lead after one quarter.
Both teams cooled off after that. Cal was 1-for-9 from distance after its fast start, and Viriginia was alspo 1-for-9 on three-pointers after its 4-for-4 start.
NOTES: Cal entered play on Thursday tied for seventh place in the ACC standings. The top 15 teams in the ACC’s 18-team women’s basketball standings qualify for the ACC tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina, so Cal is in no danger of not making the field.
But it would be important for Cal to be the No. 7 seed rather than the No. 8 seed in the conference tournament. If Cal would win its opening game of the conference tournament as the No. 8 seed it would face Notre Dame in its second game. Nobody wants to face the Irish, who are ranked No. 1 in the country. If Cal wins its opening game as the No. 7 seed, its next game would be against the No. 2 seed, which could be any one of five teams, all of whom would be favored against Cal but not an overwhelming favorite like Notre Dame would be.
The women’s ACC tournament begins March 5, although Cal’s first game will be March 6..
Democrats are celebrating after Virginia approved a redistricting plan that could help their party net up to four additional congressional seats in the race for control of the House. But it was a close call, thanks to lackluster turnout in Democratic areas and a rightward shift across much of the state, an NBC News Decision Desk analysis of precinct data shows.
Virginia
Chemical leak at a West Virginia plant kills 2 people and sends 19 to hospital, officials say
INSTITUTE, W.Va. — A chemical leak at a West Virginia silver recovery business on Wednesday killed two people and sent 19 others to the hospital, including one in critical condition, authorities said.
The leak occurred at the Catalyst Refiners plant in Institute as workers were preparing to shut down at least part of the facility, Kanawha County Commission Emergency Management Director C.W. Sigman said.
A chemical gas reaction occurred at the plant involving nitric acid and another substance, Sigman said at a news briefing. He added that there was “a violent reaction of the chemicals and it instantaneously overreacted.”
“Starting or ending a chemical reaction are the most dangerous times,” Sigman said.
The chemical reaction that was believed to have occurred during a cleaning process produced toxic hydrogen sulfide, Kanawha County Commission President Ben Salango said.
Among the injured were seven ambulance workers responding to the leak, officials said.
Other people were taken to the hospitals in private cars or even in one case a garbage truck, Sigman said.
One person was in critical condition, Salango said.
Vandalia Health Charleston Area Medical Center, one of several hospitals in the area, was treating multiple patients, some brought by ambulance, while members of the community were arriving Wednesday afternoon asking to be checked, hospital spokesman Dale Witte said.
Witte said patients were experiencing respiratory symptoms including cough, shortness of breath, sore throat and itchy eyes. They were being evaluated in the emergency room.
WVU Medicine Thomas Memorial Hospital in South Charleston said in a statement it has cared for a dozen patients, including eight who arrived by personal vehicle and were not at the scene but were in the area at the time. It said those injuries were not considered life-threatening.
A shelter-in-place order was issued for the surrounding area and lifted more than five hours later. Officials said all the deaths occurred on the plant site.
“You had to get really close to the facility to smell it,” Sigman said.
The leak required a large-scale decontamination operation in which people had to remove their clothes and be sprayed down, authorities said.
Catalyst Refiners works to remove silver from what remains of chemical processes and can find thousands of dollars of the precious metal just by vacuuming the floors in a plant’s offices, Sigman said.
Ames Goldsmith Corp., the owner of Catalyst Refiners, said it is saddened by the deaths and its thoughts were with all those affected and their families.
“This is an unfathomably difficult time,” company President Frank Barber said in a statement released at the briefing. “Our thoughts and prayers are with our colleagues and their families.”
Ames Goldsmith promised to work with local, state and federal officials as they investigate the leak. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has opened an investigation into what happened, a spokesperson said, adding that the agency has six months to complete its examination.
Silver is in a number of items ranging from circuit boards and other electronics, photographic and X-Ray films and jewelry. Nitric acid is used to dissolve materials, leaving behind silver nitrate that can be processed to recover pure silver. Recovery businesses can also crush or sandblast items with silver and use magnets or differences in density to sort out the precious metal.
Sigman said Ames Goldsmith recovers silver from the various plants at the Institute complex “and they’ll use it again. When they vacuum their carpets in their office, they recover so many thousands of dollars’ worth of silver out of it just vacuuming their carpets.”
The plant is located near Institute, a community about 10 miles west of Charleston, the state capital. The plant is in a region known as West Virginia’s “chemical valley,” although many plants that lined the area along the Kanawha River and produced hazardous materials have closed or changed ownership in the past several decades.
Raby writes for the Associated Press. Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.
DALEVILLE, Va. (WSET) — Heads up, Virginia Iconicks! Nick Jonas is having a show in Danville in June!
The superstar is set to perform on June 11 at Caesars Virginia’s venue, The Pantheon.
SEE ALSO: Danville sees unusually high voter turnout for redistricting referendum, registrar says
He announced the concert in an Instagram post, revealing a six-stop tour spanning up and down the East Coast.
“Six nights with you this June!” Jonas said in the post. “I’ve been wanting to do a run like this for a while. Something that feels a little closer, playing through different releases from over the years. A few of my favorites, a lot of your favorites and sharing the stories behind them as we go.”
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You can reserve tickets on April 23.
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