Saxton, Gamecocks ease into national championship game
♦ The Model High product and her South Carolina teammates will play for the title Sunday.
MINNEAPOLIS — After spending the entire season atop the national polls, South Carolina had gotten used to playing as a favorite every night. Friday, when the Gamecocks faced fourth-ranked Louisville in the NCAA semifinals, things were no different.
South Carolina got to the Final Four by meeting every challenge with poise. It stuck to that script at Target Center, dispatching the Cardinals, 72-59, to reach Sunday’s NCAA title game. The Gamecocks, who won the 2017 NCAA championship in their last title game appearance, will face the winner of Friday’s second semifinal between Stanford and Connecticut.
National player of the year Aliyah Boston paced the Gamecocks on offense and defense, with 23 points and 18 rebounds. South Carolina’s stellar defense played a big part. The Gamecocks limited Louisville’s leading scorer, guard Hailey Van Lith, to nine points, the first game in the tournament that Van Lith did not score 20 or more.
Emily Engstler scored 18 for Louisville before fouling out with four minutes, 56 seconds remaining.
The victory was South Carolina’s 13th in a row over a ranked opponent, the most of any team in Division I.
The Gamecocks scored the game’s first seven points and led by as many as nine in the early going. Louisville settled down in the second quarter and took its first lead of the game, using a 12-0 run to gain a 22-19 advantage. South Carolina calmly regained control, outscoring the Cardinals 15-6 to end the first half.
The Gamecocks kept that going in the third quarter, using a hot start to push the margin to 15 points. Louisville cut it to six late in the quarter, but Boston scored her team’s next eight points to stunt the Cardinals rally.
Louisville struggled to find its footing in the first five minutes. Under heavy pressure from the Gamecocks’ defense, the Cardinals launched four air-balls and did not score until Olivia Cochran’s jumper with 6:59 remaining.
South Carolina raced to a 7-0 lead and expanded it to 11-2 on an offensive rebound and putback by Boston. At that point, the Gamecocks were outrebounding the Cardinals 9-1, while Louisville had made just 1 of 6 shots. After Engstler missed a pair of free throws to start the second quarter, Victaria Saxton slipped inside for a layup, leaving the sputtering Cardinals trailing 19-10.
Despite all that, Louisville persisted — and clawed its way back with a remarkable 12-0 run. Engstler led the way, scoring six points in a row. After a fast-break layup, she snared an offensive rebound and scored, then got another layup in transition off of a South Carolina turnover.
That gave Louisville a 20-19 lead, its first of the game. The Cardinals led by three when South Carolina answered with an 11-2 spurt. Brea Beal scored six points down the stretch in the second quarter, leaving the Gamecocks with a 34-28 halftime lead.
A 10-2 South Carolina burst to start the third quarter pushed its lead back to double digits. Kianna Smith fueled the Cardinals to a brief rally late in the quarter before the Gamecocks repelled them again.