By Josie Simpson
No. 25 Louisville fell to the No. 3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish in a tough regular season finale.
A spicy start
Louisville came out strong against Notre Dame, winning the jump ball and immediately capitalizing with a three-pointer from Tajianna Roberts.
Back-and-forth action followed, with Louisville maintaining the momentum.
Notre Dame briefly took the lead when Hannah Hidalgo drained a three, but Jayda Curry responded with a mid-range jump shot to tie the game at 12-12.
Curry hit a three, but then scoring went cold for both team. No one scored for almost the final three minutes of the first quarter.
The first ended with Louisville leading 15-14.
The second quarter began the same as the first, with both teams trading buckets.
Merissah Russell hit a three to tie the game at 20-20, and then the feeling of the game changed.
The Irish started to get to the line at will, and inched up to a six-point lead. The Cards fought back with some free throws from Olivia Cochran and another three from Curry to close the gap 25-26.
But then Hidalgo spotted a hole in Louisville’s transition defense, and attacked it several possessions in a row. Curry hit yet another three to stop the bleeding for a bit, but the snowball had already started rolling.
To make matters worse, Curry injured her shoulder trying to stop Hidalgo on a fast break.
Her absence was noticed, and Notre Dame just kept rolling.
Louisville entered halftime trailing 28-36.
Foul play
It didn’t look like much had changed coming out of the locker rooms, as Hidalgo got to the line again to bring the deficit to nine.
Then, Curry sparked some life into the offense out of nowhere, drilling back-to-back threes in a span of just 16 seconds. However, Notre Dame took complete control of the game from the free-throw line, nearly matching Louisville’s entire quarter scoring with foul shots alone.
Louisville was called for nine fouls in the third quarter alone compared to Notre Dame’s three, as the Irish ended the quarter on a 21-6 run.
Louisville trailed 40-58 going into the final quarter.
Right out the gates, Maddy Westbeld hit a three to take the Irish’s lead to 21 points.
Louisville finally played good enough defense to stage a comeback, holding Notre Dame scoreless for three minutes and then again for a minute-and-a-half, but the Cards only managed to cut the score to 52-66.
Just under three minutes remained on the clock, so a comeback was possible. But Olivia Miles and Hidalgo each hit three-pointers, sealing Louisville’s fate.
Louisville fell 59-72.
Final Takeaways
While the game started with promise, Louisville struggled to maintain offensive momentum, and Notre Dame’s ability to draw fouls proved decisive.
The Cards held Hidalgo to a more modest 20 points, which was crucial to winning, but they allowed the Irish to shoot40% from behind the arc. Louisville has shown in the past month if they don’t protect the perimeter they cannot hang with the countries top teams.
Meanwhile, the Cards show terrible from the field. Hitting just 30.1% of their shots.
Louisville also lost the rebounding margin by eight despite grabbing seven more offensive boards than Notre Dame.
Curry did her best to carry Louisville with 19 points including some very timely triples.
Cochran had a less-than-stellar seven points and five rebounds, but she did set a program record for the most games played in a Louisville jersey.
The tough loss drops Louisville to 20-9 on the year and 13-5 in the ACC. Louisville have the fifth seed in the ACC tournament, and will play their first game on Thursday.
Photo Courtesy // Taris Smith, Louisville Athletics
