Orange in first title game
The Syracuse women rout the Huskies and have a chance to win first championship.
SYRACUSE 80 WASHINGTON 59
INDIANAPOLIS — Syracuse just followed the normal plan Sunday night and the Orange are one win from a national championship.
With the Orange’s strong three- point shooting barrage challenging Washington’s defense and full- court pressure forcing miscue after miscue, the Huskies f inally cracked.
Alexis Patterson scored 18 points, and Brittney Sykes added 17 to help the Orange roll past the surprising Huskies, 80- 59, and right into their f irst women’s national title game.
“When you get those type of steals and come out in the second half and you become hungrier and start to turn them over and start to get the ball and you want them more and you understand what’s at stake is you can go home, and that puts fear in you,” Sykes said. “You want to go out and you want to give your all for 40 minutes because you don’t want those to be the last 40 min- utes.” Not a chance now. The next goal is to end Connecticut’s historic run on Tuesday night. The three- time defending champs rolled to their 74th consecutive win with a 29point blowout over Oregon State, the largest margin ever in the national semifinals. One more would give Connecticut a record fourth straight title and another perfect season.
With Syracuse’s blowout, it marked the first time since 1995 — and only the third time in Final Four history — that each of the two games were decided by 20 or more points.
How did Syracuse ( 30- 7) get here?
“They brought us out of our zone early by making [ three- point] shots, ran us out of our zone, which is our bread- and- butter,” Washington Coach Mike Neighbors said. “They were hot down the stretch. Not doing anything they haven’t been doing for the last month.”
The outmanned Huskies ( 26- 11) couldn’t keep up.