N.C. State women top Georgia Tech in ACC tournament semifinals; Duke falls to BC

N.C. State teams know a little bit about how to survive and advance.

It wasn’t pretty by any means, especially early, but the No. 2-seed Wolfpack found a way to knock off No. 7 Georgia Tech, 57-48, Friday in the ACC women’s tournament quarterfinals.

With the win, N.C. State advances to Saturday’s semifinal game against the winner of the Duke-Boston College game at the Greensboro Coliseum. The Wolfpack was were able to avenged its 65-60 loss to the Yellow Jackets on Feb. 16 in Raleigh.

“They (Georgia Tech) make it so difficult for you to score,” State coach Wes Moore said. “They keep the game close, often times they keep it ugly.”

The second half on Friday was a back and forth scoring battle between N.C. State sophomore center Elissa Cunane and Georgia Tech senior guard Francesca Pan.

Pan, who scored 26 points against Pitt on Thursday, had seven in the first half against the Wolfpack. Cunane finished with two in the opening 20 minutes. But the sophomore from nearby Summerfield got the ball often in the third quarter. She finished with 14 points (in the second half) and a pair of old-fashioned three-point plays to energize the Wolfpack.

Pan finished with 15 points and kept the Yellow Jackets (20-11) in the game in the fourth. She scored six of their first seven points in the quarter. Georgia Tech junior forward Lorela Cubaj made it a four-point game with 1:42 remaining, but N.C. State freshman wing Jakia Brown-Turner drilled a three from the corner to put the Wolfpack up 53-46.

“I love it when Jakia gets open 3s,” Moore said. “Jakia is a great player, what a big shot late in the game.”

Once again, Pan carried the load for the Yellow Jackets and scored with less than a minute remaining, but a pair of free throws from Wolfpack senior guard Aislinn Konig sealed it. Konig went 4-4 from the line down the stretch and finished with 16 points.

NC State struggles in first half

N.C. State struggled in the first half and Georgia Tech led by as much as 14.

“I always think the team that played the day before has the advantage early in the game,” Moore said. “That was obviously today. They looked a lot more comfortable, a lot more aggressive.”

For the Wolfpack, everything that could go wrong, did. At one point, the Wolfpack missed eight consecutive shots from the field and bridged the first and second quarters with a three minute scoring drought, which made fans forget the 2:03 drought from earlier in the first quarter.

N.C. State got a spark in the second quarter from freshman forward Camille Hobby, who scored four points during an 11-0 run to close the half.

“I thought she did a great job,” Moore said about Hobby. “I thought she did a great job defensively, she was able to knock down a shot or two, gave us a big lift with Elissa being in foul trouble pretty early in the game.”

The run started when Konig hit a step-back three from the top of the key. Hobby, who played almost nine minutes in the first half, hit a short jumper to make it nine-point Yellow Jackets’ lead. The Wolfpack missed three in a row before redshirt senior guard Grace Hunter hit a three from the top of the key and Konig and Hobby scored the next six before junior guard Kai Crutchfied tied the game at 23 with a pair of free throws.

“We needed to be patient,” Konig said. “We needed to do the little things.”

N.C. State took its first lead of the game in the third quarter on a layup from junior forward Kayla Jones, and extended its run to 18-0 between the second and third quarters. But another scoring drought haunted the Pack and let the Yellow Jackets back in the game.

Georgia Tech trailed by three heading into the fourth and pulled to within one, 40-39, on a Pan layup, the first made basket of the fourth. Pan’s jumper moments later tied the game at 42, but Konig answered with a layup of her own to put N.C. State back out front.

“It comes to taking the right shots at the right moment,” Konig said. “It was about being patient and allowing the game to come to us when we are in a little bit of a slow start.”

Boston College tops Duke

The Wolfpack will take on Boston College in the semifinals on Saturday. The Eagles knocked off Duke, 84-77, in the late game, going on an improbable run late in the fourth quarter.

BC closed the game on a 16-2 run over the final 5:38. Duke ended the game hitting just one of their final 10 shots from the field, after leading by seven with 4:45 remaining in the game.

“You have to play a full 40 minutes,” Blue Devils coach Joanne McCallie said. “There plays to finish, rebounds to get and the ball to take care of, so we didn’t finish down the stretch.”

Duke turned the ball over four times in the final 4:45.

Eagles’ forward Taylor Soule led all scorers with 26 points, one of four BC players in double figures. Haley Gorecki led the Blue Devils with 25 points. Leaonna Odom chipped in with 22 and Jade Williams had 12. Odom scored the final field goal for Duke on a fastbreak and things went south from there.

“Disappointing for us, no doubt,” McCallie said. “But I think some very valuable lessons for us moving forward.”

The Eagles will face an N.C. State team that won the first matchup, 72-54, on Dec. 29. Six players scored in double-figures for the Wolfpack in that first contest.

“N.C. State is one of those teams where they have a lot of players who can score and do dynamic things,” Eagles’ coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. “For us, it’s going to be a matter of being more under control, knowing our personnel and how to guard them.”