North Carolina State University Athletics
Pack Upsets 3rd-Seeded Cavs, Heads to ACC Semis
3/6/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
BY TIM PEELER
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Nikitta Gartrell knew NC State's basketball team desperately needed a basket as the clock wound down to less than two minutes to play in Friday night's quarterfinal game against No. 24 Virginia.
The sixth-seeded Wolfpack had just survived a stretch of nearly seven minutes without a field goal, but Cavalier senior Monica Wright had single-handedly put her team back into contention by scoring 15 consecutive points.
Still, the Wolfpack had its lead, slim as it was. It just needed one more basket to finish off its second win over a ranked opponent in the last five days. So, as the shot clock edged towards zero, Gartrell found an opening and let fly a 3-pointer that caught even NC State coach Kellie Harper a little off guard.
It was just Gartrell's 54th 3-point attempt of the year, and she had made only 16 to that point.
"I wouldn't say it was a bad shot," Gartrell said. "But then I wouldn't say it was a good shot, either. I liked the selection of it because the shot clock was, you know, winding down and it was 3-pointer and it wasn't exactly a [2-point shot] situation.
"We had to leave it all out on the court, so I took the shot."
The ball went straight through the basket, putting a dagger in Virginia's comeback hopes.
NC State freshman Marissa Kastanek and junior Brittany Strachan made six free throws in the last minute to seal the 66-59 upset, giving the Pack its sixth win in the last seven games.
"This is a huge win for our team," said first-year head coach Kellie Harper. "For us, it's not always pretty, but we grind it out."
The Pack (19-12) advances to play seventh-seeded Boston College Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in the second ACC semifinal contest. State beat the Eagles on Feb. 19, 73-62, in Reynolds Coliseum, but lost in Boston 83-66 on Jan. 10.
In Friday's quarterfinal against the third-seeded Cavaliers, Harper's team had to overcome a scoring barrage by Virginia's Monica Wright, the 2010 ACC Player of the Year. After sitting out much of the first half because of foul trouble and missing her first six shots of the second half, Wright single-handedly got her team back into the game, scoring 15 consecutive points for her team.
That scoring outburst coincided with a seven-minute stretch that NC State had without a field goal, as the Cavaliers got as close at three points, on two separate occasions. But Gartrell's unlikely 3-pointer ensured that the Cavs got no closer.
Wright finished with a game-high 32 points, more than half of her team's total. The rest of the Cavaliers made just nine of their 36 shots to score 27 points.
Meanwhile, the Wolfpack was typically well-balanced, with four players in double-figures. Kastanek, the ACC's Freshman of the Year, had a team-high 15 points, followed by 12 for Gartrell, 11 for Strachan and 10 for sophomore Bonae Holston.
Senior Lucy Ellison did not score a point, but she had a game-high nine rebounds and was a primary reason why the Wolfpack out-rebounded the Cavaliers 47-37.
Wright may have scored most of the game's points, but her absence in the first half was key for the Wolfpack's confidence. Gartrell went straight at Wright in the game's early moments and drew two quick fouls, forcing Wright to leave the game for nearly eight minutes.
Wright had scored 10 of the Cavaliers points in the opening 10 minutes of the game and her teammates had trouble putting points on the board without her. Shortly after she returned, Virginia's all-time leading scorer picked up her third foul of the first half when she reached in to steal a rebound away from Ellison.
The Wolfpack couldn't take advantage of her absence and the game was tied when Kastanek ended the first half with a 3-pointer at the buzzer, to give State a 27-24 lead.
"You would hope to have a bigger lead if you have Monica Wright on the bench with three fouls and only 10 minutes in the game," Harper said. "But that's what we had."
Plus a little momentum.
"We went into the lockerroom pretty excited after that shot," Kastanek said. "We kind of used it to propel us in the first couple minutes of the second half, knowing that we had to come out on fire."
Harper thought Wright was tentative when the second half started, and the Wolfpack pounced on the opportunity to extend its lead. Kastanek hit a 3-pointer early in the second half, then added another with 11:49 to play that gave her team its biggest lead of the game, 49-35.
When Wright finally broke out of her mini-slump, she didn't let up. She made a fallaway jumper with 11:46 to play and scored 15 in a row before she was done.
"We knew she was going to come out can catch on fire because she was upset with the way she had played," Kastanek said. "We just had to work together as a team to get the win."
Gartrell finally ended the Wolfpack's offensive drought when she made a pull-up jumper with 4:54 to play, but Wright's two free throws a few seconds later closed the gap to 53-50. But the combination of Gartrell's 3-pointer and free throws sealed the win.
Now, the Wolfpack must prepare to face the Eagles for a third time this season.
"We just have to come out and play as hard as we did in the first two games of the tournament," Gartrell said.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
