STORRS, Conn. – That’s another victory over Connecticut. And that’s another record for Hannah Hidalgo.
On Saturday, No. 15 Notre Dame (15-4) defeated No. 8 UConn (17-4) on its homecourt. It is Notre Dame’s second-consecutive victory over the Huskies, and it is Karen and Kevin Keyes Family Head Coach Niele Ivey’s first in Storrs.
Hannah Hidalgo broke Notre Dame’s single-game freshman scoring record, dropping 34 points against a top-10 team for the second time this season (South Carolina). The previous record of 33 was held by Michelle Marciniak and set in 1991.
Notre Dame went up 8-4 to start with 4 points a piece from Hidalgo and Maddy Westbeld. UConn stormed back, hitting 7 of its next 9 buckets and holding Notre Dame scoreless from the floor for the last 4 minutes of the first frame. Hidalgo and UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards led all scorers with 8, and Westbeld was the only other Irish player to score. It was 21-14 in favor of the home team after 10.
The second quarter belonged to Notre Dame. Nat Marshall was the first to score for the Irish, and she ended the frame with 8 after a 4-5 showing from the floor. Sonia Citron went scoreless in the first, but her 4-5 showing from the floor in Q2 yielded 9 points.
Then there’s Hidalgo, not-so-quietly adding 11 points to her 8 in the first frame to end up at 19. She completely silenced the crowd with a banked-in ball from behind the arc, which was fired off just fractions of a second before the buzzer. Advantage visitors, 44-35. Notre Dame shot 66.7 percent in the second quarter and 54.5 percent in the first half. The Huskies weren’t too shabby themselves, sinking 14-29 shots.
As a whole, Notre Dame outscored the Huskies 30-14 in Q2. The Irish were just 3 points shy of a quarter-season high of 33.
UConn came out of the locker room and seemingly put together multiple mini-runs. Huskies forward Aliyah Edwards dominated in the paint, going 5-6 and ending the frame with 10 points.
But Notre Dame had an answer. UConn was doubling Citron and Hidalgo, leaving Westbeld with wide-open looks. She hit back-to-back treys after starting 0-4 from deep to end the scoring for Notre Dame in Q3. The Irish took a 60-57 lead into the final quarter.
It was 60-60 with 9:06 left before Notre Dame went on an 8-0 run. The Huskies got as close as 5. But with 1:28 to go, Notre Dame went up 15. Game over.
In the end, Hidalgo had 34, Westbeld had 23, Citron had 15, and Marshall had 10. The Irish shot 55 percent from the floor. Last season against UConn, they shot 56.1 percent. Those performances are the two highest shooting performances against ranked teams under Ivey.
Notre Dame outrebounded the Huskies 37-27 and held leading scorer Paige Bueckers to 5-17 from the floor. Despite the second-half push from Edwards, the Irish dominated UConn in the paint, 46-26.
Up next, Notre Dame heads back on the road to Georgia Tech (13-7, 4-4).
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