Defense Does It For Notre Dame In Emphatic Victory
Last season, Notre Dame started the year against a program with the acronym USC in France, in what was a convincing defeat and showed Niele Ivey’s Irish weren’t ready for the big time. There was no shame in that contest against the eventual national champions in South Carolina, but for a program with big dreams, it was a humbling day.
A year later, her Irish faced USC again, this time their west coast rivals, and found themselves on the other end of the stick, a 74-61 victory in which they never trailed, led by as much as 21 in the 4th quarter, and had her two star guards, Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles, dominate a game that featured one of the biggest stars in the game in USC guard/forward JuJu Watkins.
“I’m so proud of my team, this was obviously a huge matchup for women’s basketball in general, the moment was great, the crowd was great, but this group, they’re special and I’m so grateful to be able to lead them”, Ivey said to open her postgame remarks.
For as much star power that was on the floor offensively, the game was won by the Irish on the defensive end. One of the more offensively powerful teams in college basketball, the Irish held the Trojans to 36% shooting and their two stars to 15-40 shooting (38%) and at one point in the middle of the 4th that ledger stood at 11-35 before some garbage time buckets from Watkins.
Senior guard Sonia Citron was tasked with handling Watkins for most of the afternoon and was a major part of her inefficient night in which she also turned the ball over 5 times.
“We’re a defensive team, this kind of game gave us an opportunity to show what we can do (defensively) and we did that today.”
Hannah Hidalgo was even more emphatic about the work of Citron defensively. “What I take away from this game with Soni is that she can guard anyone in the nation, I think Soni is one of the best defenders in the nation.”
One of the key periods in the game came when senior forward Liatu King picked up her 4th foul with 4:08 in the third quarter with the Irish up 44-40. Already short handed on the front line, the Irish had to turn to Cassandra Prosper and Kate Koval for the majority of the minutes inside for the duration of the game. When King returned with 4:48 to play in the 4th, the Irish had gone on a 24-7 run to take the lead at 68-47. Of those two players, Ivey said, “I’m so proud of those two, they showed their value, Kate being a freshman, she’s stepping up every game, she’s in the fire, first time in a big game, big stage, she knew she was playing against Kiki (Iriafen) who is a future pro, so she knew the task ahead of her, and she showed great poise.”
Prosper contributed 10 points and four rebounds, as well as her defensive efforts against Watkins and Iriafen. “She brings another layer of athleticism for us. She can score, she can post up, she can defend 1-4, which is really helpful for us, and today she made timely plays, the offensive rebound putback was huge.”
And with the defensive contributions, the Irish leaned on their offensive stars to carry them home. Hannah Hidalgo (24 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists) was a demon on the floor once again, carrying the team with her energy setting the tone adding 5 steals to the ledger, while Olivia Miles was a very robust 4-5 from the three point line towards her 20 points and customary full stat line of 8 rebounds and 7 assists to cement the Irish victory in dominant fashion.
The Irish will look to get healthy as the year goes on with Maddie Westbeld and Liza Karlen waiting in the wings, but on this day they were the class of college basketball in an arena filled with stars, on and off the court.
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