Notre Dame star near home for Final Four
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — About five hours after returning to Notre Dame after winning the NCAA women’s tournament Spokane Region, Kathryn Westbeld limped Tuesday into her business class at Notre Dame — quantitative decision modeling.
Noone would have blamed the 6-foot-2 senior forward if she had made her way to the back of the room to find a seat andget more sleep.
“I should have, but I was front and center,” Westbeld laughed a little more than 14 hours after she scored 20 points to lead the top-seeded Irish to an 84-74 victory Monday night against Oregon, earning a trip to the Final Four.
Now the senior post player will see her collegiate career come to an end in Columbus, Ohio, a 75-minute trip from her hometown of Kettering, where she led Fairmont High School to a state championship.
“My family has been blowing up my phone trying to get tickets,” Westbeld said. “It means the world to me to be able to go home for my last games here at Notre Dame.”
The fact that Westbeld is even still playing after her ankle was sprained is a bit of a miracle. She wears a walking boot on her left foot after it was injured in the opening round of the NCAAs.
Westbeld didn’t start the first half of Notre Dame’s second-round game with Villanova, which was tied, 4545, at halftime. But she came out and played 16 minutes, scoring two points and pulling down six rebounds as the Irish ran away for a 98-72 victory. Then at Spokane, Westbeld had 4 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists in a 90-84 Elite Eight victory against Texas A&M.
Now she has helped the Irish get back to the Final Four for the first time in a few years.
Theirnext opponent is a familiar one in Connecticut. The Irish-Huskies semifinal follows another matching No. 1 seeds — Kansas City winner Mississippi State (361)and Lexington winner Louisville (36-2). The winners meet at 6 p.m. Easter Sunday inthe championship
Two of Notre Dame’s losses came at the hands of the Cardinals — 100-67 Jan. 11 in Louisville and then 7472 March 4 in the ACC tournament championship in Greensboro, N.C.
The other was an 80-71 setback Dec. 3 in Hartford’s XL Center to Geno Auriemma’s crew. The Irish, then No. 2, led that one by 11 points early in the fourth quarter, but the top-ranked Huskies finished on a 26-6 run for an 80-71 victory in which Westbeld, still rounding herself into shape from offseason right ankle surgery,scored four points.
That was the seventh consecutive victory by Connecticut against Notre Dame, a string that includes three Irish losses in the Final Four, including two in the 2014 and 2015 championship, the most recent one a 63-53 setback in Tampa, Fla., Westbeld’s freshmanseason.