NC State comes from behind to beat Notre Dame, advance to Elite 8 for 1st time since 1998
History was on the line for N.C. State when it battled Notre Dame in the Sweet 16 at Total Mortgage Arena.
With a trip to the Elite Eight awaiting the winner, the Wolfpack and Irish went down to the wire. The outcome came down to the smallest player on the court making the biggest play of the afternoon.
Raina Perez came up with a steal and layup with eight seconds left, and two clutch free throws in the waning seconds, to seal a 66-63 come-from-behind win.
With the win, N.C. State advances to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1998. It will face UConn on Monday after the Huskies defeated Indiana, 75-58, in the second game of the . Coming into the contest, the Pack was 1-13 all-time in the Sweet 16, having dropping three straight.
Getting beyond the Sweet 16 was the reason the team’s super seniors returned for an extra year.
“For this group, it would have been hard for me to face the fact that they all came back and we still didn’t get over the hump,” head coach Wes Moore said. “That makes me feel really good. And I’m so excited for our program to do this, kind of breakthrough.”
Saturday’s win was the ninth of the season against a ranked opponent. N.C. State lost at Notre Dame by three, 69-66, on February 1.
Perez finished the game with seven points, none bigger than her final four. The graduate transfer from Cal-State Fullerton has quickly grown into a legend around Raleigh.
“What can you say about Raina? I mean, you know, Beyonce is big, but Raina blows her away. I mean, come on,” Moore said. “Two years in a row, last year she hits the jumper to win the ACC Tournament, now this year she gets a pick there when it looked pretty — it looked like it was going to be pretty hard. Unbelievable.”
Perez picked the perfect spot to apply pressure to Notre Dame guard Dara Mabrey.
“She turned her back, the ball was still on her hip, so I went for it,” Perez said of her big steal. “Those free throws, we practice free throws every day. We’re always in tough situations, so I had to knock them down.”
Sonia Citron missed a 3 that would have given Notre Dame the lead, but Perez came down with the board and sealed it with two from the line.
“We didn’t want to go home,” Perez said. “We didn’t want the same results as last year. We all reminded each other, like, ‘hey we have to get this one, we have to get some stops and we have to score on the other end.”
Finishing strong
State outscored the Irish 20-10 in the fourth quarter after trailing by double digits.
Kai Crutchfield (14 points) started the fourth quarter with a steal and layup. She drew a foul on the play and her free throw made it a two-point Irish lead.
That moment woke up the Pack crowd, outnumbered by fans wearing Notre Dame green.
Crutchfield ended the third quarter with a 3 and her defense turned to instant offense to start the final frame. With Kayla Jones on the bench, and Elissa Cunane and Raina Perez quiet to that point, Crutchfield carried the water for her classmates.
The best player on the floor to that point was Notre Dame freshman Olivia Miles.
She answered the bucket from Crutchfield with a layup, just her second basket of the second half. Even when Miles missed it seemed to be a good thing for the Irish. A missed layup by Miles led to an offensive rebound and score from Maya Dodson, pushing the lead to eight with fewer than six minutes to play.
Once again, it was Crutchfield for State who got a steal and layup, cutting the lead to six.
“As seniors and as a fifth-year senior, we were determined to get over that hump,” Crutchfield said. “We wanted it more, we did the best we could and came out on top.”
Cunane (16 points, 10 rebounds) hit a pair of free throws to make it a two-point game. The Pack defense got the stop it needed, forcing a shot clock violation with 4:29 remaining. That was part of a 6-0 run that shifted momentum.
But N.C. State missed a shot, then turned the ball over. On the other end Miles found Maddy Westbeld that extended the Notre Dame lead to four.
Crutchfield wasn’t going down easily, hitting a long two to make it 61-59 with under two minutes remaining.
Miles wouldn’t be denied. Her driving layup put the Irish back up four before Jones grabbed an N.C. State offensive rebound and put it back to once again make it a two-point game. With less than a minute to play, Miles missed a 3 as the shot clock expired. Miles scored 15 of her 21 points in the first half. She was held to 2-for-7 shooting in the fourth quarter, mainly with Crutchfield, who played all 40 minutes, guarding her.
“It’s just a match up thing,” Crutchfield said. “We had to adapt to how they were playing the pick on the ball. In the long run we got the hang of it, I guess. We played it good enough for us to come out on top.”
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Veterans close it out
The Pack closed the game on a 7-0 run.
“We’ve had some games this season when we’ve been down,” Cunane said. “We knew what we were capable of and we just had confidence in each other.”
N.C. State trailed Notre Dame 38-30 at the break. Making the program’s fourth straight trip to the round of 16, Cunane spoke up at intermission about last season. Facing Indiana in San Antonio, the Pack came up short, 73-70.
“I remember saying at halftime, I was like, we’re kind of playing right now like we don’t remember the upset we had last year,” Cunane said. “We weren’t playing with enough toughness. I think it was really in our minds like this whole year and especially that game. We wanted to come out here, we wanted to go past the Sweet 16, and here we are. And we had to work hard for it, but we’re here.”
In the final quarter, the seniors combined for 18 of the 20 points. Crutchfield had seven and Cunane had five. Only three players scored for Notre Dame in the fourth quarter. Eight of its 10 points came from underclassmen.
“With that experience, we were able to stay composed,” Crutchfield said. “Countless times I would bet on my team no matter what, hands down.”
This story was originally published March 26, 2022 at 1:35 PM.
