The NC State women’s basketball team rode a 15-4 scoring run over the last five and a half minutes of the game to beat Georgia Tech in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament, winning 66-61.
Georgia Tech went up by as many as 10 points early in the fourth quarter but rode a clutch performance from senior guard Kai Crutchfield, who scored five points during that stretch, and junior center Elissa Cunane, who once again scored eight points in the last five minutes of the game.
“I thought Kai Crutchfield was big time for us, stepping up in clutch moments in the fourth quarter,” said head coach Wes Moore. “She just has a way of doing that. But she knocked down a 3, she got to the rim, she saved the ball down on the baseline, and like I said, we switched her to [Lotta-Maj] Lahtinen the second half, and I think she had four points.”
Cunane finished the game with 23 points and nine rebounds, while Crutchfield didn’t miss a shot in the second half, finishing with 10 points and five rebounds in 38 minutes. Senior forward Kayla Jones also had a surging performance, aiding the Pack during the fourth quarter and ending the contest with 12 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals.
The Pack’s star center has 50 points through the first two rounds of the ACC Tournament and, together with Jones and Crutchfield, scored 31 of the Pack’s 38 second half points.
“Our kids stepped up and played with some toughness,” Moore said. “And our seniors, Kayla Jones and Kai Crutchfield, stepped up and found a way to get it done. Got one more ahead of us, and again, we know it’s going to be a tough one. It’s going to be a great challenge. I’m excited about being back in that game.”
The 6-foot-5 center Cunane picked up where she left off in yesterday’s game, scoring seven of the Pack’s first 13 points. After seeing a rough performance from sophomore wing Jakia Brown-Turner in the win over Virginia Tech, the Wolfpack got five early points from the 6-foot wing. Brown-Turner struggled again at points in the second and third quarters but hit a big 3-pointer and tough layup in the fourth to bring the team to within four points after trailing for most of the game.
Georgia Tech’s Lahtinen and Lorela Cubaj gave the Yellow Jackets a boost in the second quarter, with GT going on a 6-0 run late in the half to take the lead. Lahtinen had 10 of Tech’s first 21 points and was getting any look she wanted on drives, while Cubaj hit a perfectly placed hook shot and deep jumper on back-to-back possessions.
At the end of the first half, the Pack was shooting just 38.7% from the floor and was being outscored 6-0 in fastbreak situations. Lahtinen had 13 points on six made shots while Cubaj had six points and five boards. Conversely, Cunane had nine points at the end of the half, with Jones and Brown-Turner accounting for 10 points and eight rebounds combined at that point.
Things got scary for the Pack to open the second half after Cubaj and Lahtinen hit back-to-back shots to give Georgia Tech a nine-point lead, a lead it held throughout the third quarter. While Jones and Cunane played well, accounting for 25 combined points through three quarters, the Pack allowed three different Georgia Tech players to get into double figures.
The Yellow Jackets intentionally attacked Cunane, getting her into foul trouble and taking her out for some of the third quarter. Then, they were able to get Lahtinen, Cubaj and Kierra Fletcher into a rhythm inside. At the end of the contest, Lahtinen and Cubaj had each accounted for 17, with Cubaj coming down with 11 rebounds.
“Have to give Georgia Tech so much credit,” Moore said. “Defensively, they were unbelievable. We had a hard time matching up. The first half, Lahtinen, 14 points, we switched at halftime and put Kai Crutchfield on her, and I thought she did a nice job. And then Cubaj was down low, was just tearing it up.”
In the fourth quarter, it was the Crutchfield show, as the senior made several hustle plays and gave the Pack an edge with under five minutes to go in the game. On one possession, ‘Clutchfield’ saved a ball from going out of bounds in a graceful move, then zipped over to the corner to hit a 3-pointer to bring the Wolfpack to within one point of Georgia Tech. Crutchfield finished with eight points in the fourth quarter on 3-for-3 shooting, joining Brown-Turner in igniting the Greensboro Coliseum.
“Yeah, we’ve been calling her Kai Clutchfield all season,” Cunane said. “She’s a senior who wants to win every single game she steps on the court to play, and she’s going to give her all for it. Kai is so smart, she knows the ins and outs of the defense, and she knows how to step up in big games, and she’s done that repeatedly over the season.”
After Crutchfield got the Pack back within striking distance, Cunane took over in the paint. Cunane finished on two huge layups on back-to-back NC State possessions, one that gave the Pack its first lead since the first quarter and the other bringing NC State up by four points with under a minute to go on an and-one play. These heroics propelled the Pack to win the final frame 23-13 and ultimately giving it the five-point victory, exactly one year removed from knocking the Yellow Jackets out of the ACC Tournament in 2020.
“It’s tournament time, so I definitely stepped up my game,” Cunane said. “I know that there’s not a lot of people out there that can guard me, if my teammates are getting me the ball, and we’ve been shooting it really well from the outside so that leaves up the middle to be open. I’m just trying to step up my game and play as hard as I can for my team.”
Next up, NC State will take on Louisville in the ACC Championship at noon on Sunday, March 7. The Pack previously defeated the then-No. 1 Cardinals on the road 74-60. Follow @TechSports on Twitter for live updates of that game.
“Since probably like the beginning of the season, that’s when they started really calling me [‘Clutchfield’],” Crutchfield said. “A few games, like last year, the Maryland game, that’s kind of when it got stuck to me. I think that is a name that can stick. It sounds pretty good, don’t you think?”
N.C. State's Elissa Cunane (33) shoots as Georgia Tech's Lorela Cubaj (13) defends during the first half of N.C. State’s game against Georgia Tech in the semifinals of the ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament in Greensboro, N.C., Saturday, March 6, 2021.
