
She and fellow first-year player Sonia Citron scored seven straight for the Irish to open up a 36-26 lead. The Wolfpack got off to a decent start and led 16-12 after one quarter before the Irish got going behind their freshman Miles. “We have a bright future, starting two freshmen and a sophomore.” “I wanted to stress that to them that I don’t want them to feel this is the end of the world,” Ivey said. The Irish missed the NCAAs last year for the first time since 1995. Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey has the Irish back among the nation’s elite women’s basketball teams in her second season as head coach. “It’s just incredible to see what we’ve done, and I’m sure we’re going to remember this feeling like we remembered the feeling last year and come back and go even farther.” “No one thought that we’d do this coming from a team that did not make the tournament last year and fought through a lot of adversity with COVID and injuries and players,” Miles said. Olivia Miles scored 21 points and Westbeld added 13 for the Irish (24-9). “It’s a hump we had to get over and the girls are determined and I’m determined and we made it happen.” said Crutchfield of reaching the regional final. State’s most recent loss of the season and only defeat in conference play. State (32-3) advanced to the regional final Monday night where it will face second-seeded UConn.Ĭunane scored 16 points and Crutchfield added 14 for the Wolfpack, who avenged an earlier loss to the Irish on Feb. It was there first since the 7:43 mark of the second quarter. After a Notre Dame timeout, the Irish got the ball inbounds in the backcourt and Dara Mabrey was stripped near midcourt by Perez, who took it in for the layup and the lead.
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The Wolfpack had gotten within 63-62 when Elissa Cunane made the first of two free throws with 36 seconds left. “We practice this and knew I could do it,” Perez said of the free throws. The Irish had one last chance, but Maddy Westbeld missed a 3-pointer from the wing and Perez hit both free throws for the final margin. Trailing 59-51 early in the fourth quarter, the Wolfpack rallied, scoring 15 of the final 19 points capped by Perez’s layup. She hit the game-winning jumper to lift them to the ACC tournament championship last season. It wasn’t the first time that Perez came up huge for the Wolfpack on a big stage.

It took a while four years of the Sweet 16 to get through that wall.” “That makes me feel really good and I’m so excited for our program to do this, kind of break through.
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“For this group it would have been hard for me to face the fact they they all came back and we still didn’t get over the hump,” N.C. State had lost in the Sweet 16 the previous three tournaments and looked as if it was going to make it four straight until the late rally led by Perez and Kai Crutchfield, who also came back for the extra COVID year granted by the NCAA.
