Notre Dame faced the ACC Tournament’s top seed in Virginia Tech for its semifinal game. With the Hokies missing injured conference player of the year Elizabeth Kitley and the Irish having beaten them a week ago with her, everything trended in their direction. But the Irish suffered their own bad injury luck during their dominant 82-53 victory that put them in the tournament championship game.
The Irish (25-6) led almost the entire game, and any hope the Hokies (24-7) had were dashed when the Irish scored 20 unanswered points between the second and third quarters. However, the high the Irish were on was dampened when [autotag]Kylee Watson[/autotag] went down with a left knee injury and had to be helped back to the locker room. While she did put some weight on the knee and eventually returned to the Irish’s bench with crutches, both the team and fans undoubtedly will hold their collective breath as they await word on her condition.
While the Hokies were able to cut the deficit to 15 after Watson went out, the Irish found yet another wind despite taking another hit to their depth. Before it was over, they went back up by as much as 32. The Hokies simply had no answers for the Irish no matter who was or wasn’t on the court.
[autotag]Sonia Citron[/autotag] was the Irish’s best player on the afternoon by virtue of leading them with 19 points, seven rebounds and three steals. [autotag]Maddy Westbeld[/autotag] scored 18 points and blocked three shots. [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] had 15 points and six assists, and [autotag]Anna DeWolfe[/autotag] got 12 of her 14 points on four 3-pointers.
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