Notre Dame Women's Basketball Pulls Away To Beat Boston College 79-55
Chestnutt Hill, Mass. - Notre Dame started slow but finished strong in a 79-55 win over Boston College Sunday afternoon. The Fighting Irish (21-6, 11-5 ACC) trailed the Eagles (11-18, 3-13) 21-11 at the end of the first quarter but outscored the hosts 68-34 over the game’s final 30 minutes to hand the host their tenth consecutive loss.
Hannah Hidalgo led what turned into a balanced scoring attack with 19 points. The freshman guard was 5 for 15 with 12 points in the first half, while the rest of the team was 5 for 17 for 17 points.
Notre Dame started the game 1 for 8 from the floor and trailed 14-3 at the 4:22 mark when head coach Niele Ivey called a timeout. BC hit 6 of its first 14 shots to jump out to the early lead. Hidalgo hit back-to-back shots coming out of the timeout, one of them on a basket and a free throw, as the Irish cut the deficit to six.
Notre Dame trailed 22-16 at the media timeout with 4:56 to go in the first half. Anna DeWolfe’s left baseline jumper with a minute to play in the half gave the Irish their first lead of the half at 25-23. It was part of a 16-1 run to outscore BC 18-4 in the second quarter to take a 29-25 lead into the locker room at halftime.
The Irish were 6 of 14 from the field in the second quarter after going 4 of 18 in the first quarter, while Boston College hit just one of its 13 second-quarter shots. Notre Dame missed all 11 of their 3-point attempts in the first half. The Eagles, the worst 3-point shooting team in the ACC, were 2 of 8 from behind the arc in the half. They finished 3 for 17 after hitting 1 of 19 long range shots in Notre Dame’s 98-48 win over the Eagles in January.
Combined with a stingy defense that forced 22 turnovers, Maddy Westbeld and Sonia Citron sparked the Irish offense in the second half. Westbeld hit a pair of 3s to help ND hit 3 of its 4 four shots of the second half to jump out to a 38-27 lead. Westbeld was 7 for 7 from the field enroute to scoring 16 of her 18 points in the second half.
Citron scored 12 of her 16 points in the second half as well. She attacked the basket by hitting 5 of 7 shots in the half to help Notre Dame score 46 points in the paint and 18 fastbreak points to none by the Eagles.
Westbeld and Kylee Watson played through second half foul trouble with fellow forward Nat Marshall, who made the trip to Boston, out of uniform for the game due to illness. Watson hit both of her shots in the game and paced the team with three blocked shots to bring her team-high total to 39.
The Irish have won five straight games over the Eagles. They entered the day tied with North Carolina for sixth place in the ACC standings. Louisville, which was tied for third place entering the day, lost to Virginia on Sunday. The top-four teams in the ACC receive a bye when the ACC Tournament begins next week in Greensboro, N.C.
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