Gabriela Jaquez delivered on a key sequence that helped No. 1 Seed UCLA to keep off the third seed LSU and send Bruins to its first final Four ever with a decision of 72-65 on Sunday in Spokane region 1 final.
UCLA (34-2) led during the second half and with so many 14 points, but LSU continued repeated runs that had the tigers within striking distances along the route. An 8-0 tigers run late in the fourth quarter scored 56-53 with 3:24 left.
Lauren Betts, who met suffocating double and triple teams during his 17-point, seven-bound performance, shared a couple of free throw to drive Bruin’s lead back to four. Then, after LSU failed to score on the subsequent possession, Jaquez came to the Foul line to sink a pair of foul shots.
At the other end, Kailyn Gilbert missed a shot and Jaquez Snagged a deflection for the recovery. Jaquez then fed bite in the low post from the wing, moved to the corner, regained the ball from Betts and shot in a 3-pointer.
Jaquez’s shot expanded the UCLA lead to an insurmountable nine-point margin and set an exclamation point on her team high 18-point, eight rebound performance.
LSU (31-6) got a game high 28 points from Flau’jae Johnson. Aneesah Morrow added 15 points, but Bruins limited the country’s leading rebounder to seven boards before the Morrow Fouled out.
Morrow also came out for a distance during the third quarter after a collision with teammate Sa’myah Smith gave Morrow a broken nose. For its part, Smith finished with 10 returns and helped limit UCLA’s bets to 7-AV-14 shooting from the floor.
Betts made her part for Bruins defensively with six blocked shots. Ucla also got three steals from Jaquez.
Bruins went only 21-of-55 on field target attempts. But with 10-AV-24 which comes from 3-point interval-led by Timea Gardiners 5-8 for 15 points from the bench-opposed LSU’s 25-of-67 shooting for the game.
-Field level media
