Notre Dame Rallies To Beat Georgia Tech
The Niele Ivey era has its first winning streak, as the Notre Dame Fighting Irish rallied from four-point halftime deficit and multiple fourth quarter deficits to beat Georgia Tech 69-67.
Senior guard Destinee Walker and senior forward Mikayla Vaughn came up huge down the stretch. After Georgia Tech took a 60-59 lead in the fourth quarter, Vaughn put the Irish back up, and that was followed up by Walker turning an Anaya Peoples steal into a layup and a foul that quickly turned a one-point deficit into a four-point lead.
The Yellow Jackets battled back to tie it up from the stripe, but Walker attacked the baseline and hit a floating jumper to put the Irish up with just :21 seconds remaining. Notre Dame never gave Georgia Tech a clean look on its final possession as the Irish secured the victory.
Notre Dame ended 2020 with a convincing road win over Miami, and it kicks off 2021 with this victory, which avenged an 82-67 loss to the Jackets back in December.
The Fighting Irish had a balanced scoring attack that saw four players reach double figures. Junior guard Dara Mabrey paced the Irish with 16 points and Walker was just behind at 15, but her six clutch points down the stretch were huge. Vaughn and freshman Maddy Westbeld scored 11 points apiece.
Notre Dame closed the game out with Westbeld, the team's leading scorer, on the bench after she founded out.
People scored just seven points but had a strong all-around performance, grabbing a team-high seven boards, dishing out a team-high six assists and creating two steals, including the key fourth quarter steal that set up Walker's layup.
The Irish were much better on the defensive end, holding the Jackets to 42.4% from the floor and just 26.1% from deep after they knocked down 53.3% from the field and 52.6% from behind the arc in their December win over Notre Dame.
Notre Dame is still a young team and it continues to get better and better, and it showed maturity in the win over the Jackets, thanks in part to its veterans coming up big down the stetch.
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