Iowa cruises past Holy Cross 91-65 as Caitlin Clark scores 27
Caitlin Clark struggled to make shots early, but finished with 27 points and 10 assists as Iowa defeated Holy Cross 91-65 in a women’s NCAA tournament first-round game Saturday.
Kate Martin also had a double-double with 15 points and 14 rebounds for the Hawkeyes (304), the top seed in the Albany 2 Regional.
ALBANY REGIONAL 1
Sonia Citron scored 29 points and Hannah Hidalgo added a double-double with 14 points and 11 assists to help No. 2-seed Notre Dame beat 15thseeded Kent State.
Citron was 13 of 20 from the field while Hidalgo added six steals for the Irish (27-6).
Katie Shumate led Kent State (21-11) with 20 points while Janae Tyler scored 18.
Sara Scalia scored 27 points to lead fourth-seeded Indiana to a victory over No. 13 Fairfield on in the first round of the women’s NCAA tournament.
Scalia sank five of the Hoosiers’ 10 3-pointers. Yarden Garzon, Chloe Moore-mcneil and Mackenzie Holmes each scored 13 points for the Hoosiers.
The Hoosiers (25-5) will face No. 5 seed Oklahoma on Monday night.
Madison Scott scored 20 points and No. 7 Mississippi used a late run to beat 10th-seeded Marquette in the first round of the women’s NCAA Tournament.
ALBANY REGIONAL 2
Lauren Jensen scored 25 points, Emma Ronsiek added 23 and Creighton sank 15 3-pointers en route to a 87-73 victory over UNLV in the first round of the women’s NCAA Tournament on Saturday despite 30 points from Desi-rae Young.
Morgan Maly added 16 points for Creighton. Young became the second 2,000-point scorer in UNLV women’s history early in the second half.
JJ Quinerly scored 29 points as West Virginia defeated Princeton 63-53 in a women’s NCAA tournament first-round game on Saturday. Quinerly, who was 10 of 19 from the field, scored West Virginia’s first 12 points of the fourth quarter as the eighth-seeded Mountaineers (25-7) pulled away to advance to Monday’s Albany 2 Regional second-round game against No. 1 seed Iowa.
West Virginia ended Princeton’s five-game winning streak by rallying in the second half as its pressure defense disrupted the Tigers.
PORTLAND REGIONAL 3
Juju Watkins scored 23 points in her NCAA Tournament debut, leading No. 1 seed Southern California to a blowout victory over Texas A&m-corpus Christi.
The Trojans (27-5) also got 23 points from Mckenzie Forbes in a first-round game they dominated from the opening tip.
Paige Bueckers scored 28 points and freshman Ashlynn Shade added 26 as No. 3 seed Uconn celebrated coach Geno Auriemma’s 70th birthday with a win over Jackson State.
Aaliyah Edwards, wearing a mask after missing two games with a broken nose, had 20 points and 10 rebounds for the Huskies (30-5), who won in the opening round of the tournament for a 30th straight time.
Rickea Jackson scored 26 points and Tennessee rolled past Green Bay.
Sarah Puckett added 14 points and Jewel Spear had 13 for the sixth-seeded Lady Vols, who are the only team to participate in all 42 women’s NCAA Tournaments. It was the first game in Raleigh for Tennessee coach Kellie Harper, who coached North Carolina State for four seasons from 2009-13.
Yvonne Ejim had 25 points and 14 rebounds, and No. 4 seed Gonzaga overcame a slow start to roll past UC Irvine 75-56 in the first round of the women’s NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs rallied from an 11-point first-half deficit and led by as many as 26 points in the fourth quarter.
Kayleigh Truong added 16 points and the Zags shot 62% and scored 45 points in the second half.
Nevaeh Parkinson scored 18 points and Moulayna Johnson Sidi Baba added 15 for UC Irvine.