RICHMOND, Va. – Coaches often preach that winning the rebounding battle is a key to success in college basketball.

Unfortunately, that proved true for Virginia Commonwealth University on Sunday as the Rams suffered a rough night on the boards, dropping a 66-52 decision to the University of Richmond in a battle for city bragging rights.

The Spiders had three players with double-digit rebounding efforts, while the team outrebounded VCU 52-35, including a 26-11 margin in the second half.

"It's hard to put your finger on," said VCU Head Coach Beth Cunningham on her team's struggle in the post.  "Coming out of halftime we had given up six offensive rebounds, and in the second half alone we gave up 14 on the offensive end.  More often than not, they were scoring on it or getting a three-point play.  For whatever reason, we had little sense of urgency to rebound the basketball."

Richmond (7-2) jumped out to an early 10-5 lead at the 10:19 mark before VCU used a 10-3 run to pull ahead 15-13 with just under eight minutes left in the first half.  However, it didn't take long for the Spiders to settle down as Richmond scored 15 of the next 18 points to take a 28-18 advantage with two minutes to go before the break.

VCU (3-2) cut the Spiders' lead to six on two occasions to start the second half but it was as close as the Rams would get.  Richmond went up by 16 points on a three-pointer by Brittani Shells with 12:30 remaining and held a double-digit advantage the remainder of the game.

The Rams had trouble generating a rhythm on the offensive end for much of the afternoon, shooting just 25% (8-of-32) from the field in the first half and 33.9% for the game.

"I thought we did some really uncharacteristic things on offense," Cunningham said.  "We had poor offensive execution right from the beginning of the game.  You have to be able to come out and execute regardless of what is happening on the other end of the court, especially in situations when they have a lead and we are trying to chip away.  We never really were able to get into a flow.  You can certainly give Richmond credit for that."

Senior forward D'Andra Moss (right) paced VCU with 16 points but fouled out with less than five minutes to play.  Classmate La'Tavia Rorie added 15 points and a game-high four steals for the Rams, while senior guard Kita Waller chipped in eight points off the bench.

Shells led Richmond with a game-high 18 points and 11 rebounds.  Abby Oliver registered 15 points off the bench and Kara Powell scored 10 points for the Spiders.  Nikita Thomas and Katie Holzer tallied 12 and 10 rebounds, respectively.

VCU returns to the Verizon Wireless Arena on Saturday, December 12 for a 4 p.m. matchup with Radford University.