Notre Dame Women's Basketball Holds Off Pittsburgh Upset Bid

Heading into the stretch drive of the season, style points don’t really matter much for the Notre Dame women’s basketball team. Good thing, because style was not the order of the night in Notre Dame’s (19-4, 10-3 ACC) 69-63 win over visiting Pittsburgh (8-16, 1-12) Thursday night at Purcell Pavilion.

The Panthers, losers of their first 11 ACC games, were fresh off their first conference win of the season on Sunday and played like a team with the confidence to stand toe-to-toe with the No. 10 Irish. Notre Dame got off to a pedestrian 4 for 15 start from the field, including 1 for 7 from 3-point range, and trailed the visitors 14-13 at the end of the first quarter.

The Fighting Irish found some swagger to open the second quarter, though. They rattled off the first 12 points of the frame for a 15-0 run that stretched to the final minutes of the first quarter to go up by 11 at the 5:54 mark of the second quarter.

Olivia Miles, who finished the night with her eighth double-double of the season, brought her own style to the court most of the night. After finishing with a season-low two assists in Sunday’s loss to Duke, Miles had four assists in the first half and finished with 13 to go along with 11 points.

The Irish outscored Pitt 20-14 lead to take a 33-28 lead into the locker room, but the Panthers hung around all night in a game that featured eight lead changes and five ties.

Pittsburgh led by three early in the fourth quarter, but Miles went to work dropping dimes to Maddy Westbeld and Sonia Citron, who combined to score 17 of Notre Dame’s 22 points in the game’s final quarter. Miles assisted on seven of Notre Dame’s nine field goals in the fourth.

Citron, who tied Pitt’s Dayshanette Harris for the game-high with 20 points, nailed a trey with 2:28 to play to push the Irish up 65-59 and followed that with a jumper from the left elbow with :51 to make it an eight-point Irish advantage to give Notre Dame its most breathing room since early in the second half. It was Citron's fifth 20+ point game this season.

Westbeld was a factor at both ends of the floor. She had 17 points and 10 rebounds for her third double-double of the season and her second in the last four games. She also blocked three shots to bring her team-high total to 34 this season.

Westbeld and Cassandre Prosper, who finished with eight points, each had five offensive rebounds to help the Irish to a 41-27 advantage on the boards and a 25-7 second chance points edge.

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