Wolfpack Women Score Important Senior Night Win

NC State's women's basketball team wraps up the No. 2 seed in the upcoming ACC tournament with a 69-60 win against Syracuse

The eighth-ranked NC State women's basketball team (24-4, 13-4 ACC) secured the two seed at the upcoming ACC Tournament with its 69-60 victory over Syracuse (15-13, 9-8 ACC) Thursday evening inside Reynolds Coliseum.

The Wolfpack's two seed for the conference tournament is the team's best postseason position since the 1990 ACC Tournament when it was the top seeded team.

Thursday night marked the final regular-season home game for NC State seniors Erika Cassell, Kaila Ealey, Grace Hunter and Aislinn Konig. The 2020 class has compiled 48 ACC victories and 60 home wins, both program records for any four-year class. After the win over Syracuse, the seniors are up to 101 total victories since the start of the 2016-17 campaign.

In its victory over the Orange, the Wolfpack used a solid end to the third quarter to build up a double-digit lead that it would only relinquish at the tail end of the fourth period.

NC State scored nine of the last 12 points of the third quarter to take its largest advantage of the night (61-48, 13 points) into the final 10 minutes of action. Syracuse came no closer than nine points in the fourth quarter as NC State picked up its 13th conference win of the season, which ties for the most in a single season in program history.

Konig led a well-balanced scoring attack for the Wolfpack that saw four players find double figures in the scoring column. She posted 13 points and dished out a team-leading five assists on the night.

Cassell finished just one rebound shy of a double-double with 12 points and nine boards during her Senior Night outing. The forward shot 4-of-8 from the floor on her way to posting season highs in both categories. Kayla Jones added 12 points of her own and tied her career high with 14 rebounds to notch the fifth double-double performance of her career.

Hunter added 10 points on Senior Night to round out the Pack's double-figure scorers. A total of 11 players saw time on the court on Thursday, with nine of those 11 tallying points.

The Pack shot 25-of-56 (.446) from the field as a team and dominated the boards with a 46-29 (+17) advantage in rebounding. NC State never trailed in the outing as it led for 37:57 of the game's 40 minutes.

Syracuse's Kiara Lewis led all players on the floor with 20 points on 8-of-16 shooting. She was joined in double figures by 10 points from Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi.