SPOKANE, Wash. — Shatori Walker-Kimbrough scored 18 of her 24 points in the second half, Laurin Mincy scored all 15 of her points in the first half, and top-seeded Maryland advanced to the Spokane Regional final with a 65-55 victory over No. 4 seed Duke on Saturday.

Walker-Kimbrough took over the scoring load carried by Mincy in the first half as the Terrapins (33-2) reached the Elite Eight for the sixth time under coach Brenda Frese, taking down their former foe from the ACC in the process. The Terrapins had lost eight of their previous 10 games against Duke. But Maryland is 2-0 against the Blue Devils in the NCAA Tournament.

Elizabeth Williams led Duke (23-11) with 18 points and nine rebounds.

Meeting for the first time since Maryland’s departure for the Big Ten, the Terrapins knocked off the Blue Devils for the first time since Feb. 19, 2012. Even the mascots got in on the fun of the former conference foes getting together with Duke’s Blue Devil wearing a taped message on his forehead reading “The ACC Don’t Miss Ya,” and Maryland’s Testudo responding with “April 4th 2006,” the date of the Terrapins national title victory over Duke.

Maryland was the one left celebrating at the end thanks to one of the best performances of Walker-Kimbrough’s career.

In the first half, the Terrapins offense was mostly Mincy finding holes in Duke’s zone defense and hitting 3s from the perimeter. Mincy scored 12 of Maryland’s first 24 points, all on 3-pointers, but she deferred to Walker-Kimbrough in the final 20 minutes as the sophomore got hot. Walker-Kimbrough made 8 of 11 shots in the second half and just missed topping her previous career high of 25 earlier this season against South Florida. Walker-Kimbrough had scored more than 20 points just three times since the start of Big Ten play in late December.

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Brionna Jones added 10 points and 10 rebounds as the Terrapins held a decided 33-24 rebounding advantage.

Ka’lia Johnson scored 15 points for the short-handed Blue Devils, but Azura Stevens and Rebecca Greenwell were both hounded by Maryland’s defense. Stevens finished with 11 points on 5 of 15 shooting, while Greenwell could never get clear looks from the perimeter and was held to five points, after averaging 14.3 on the season.

Duke trailed by 10 in the opening moments of the second half before going on a 16-7 scoring spurt, hitting six straight shots. Greenwell curled off a screen to hit her first 3-pointer and Williams rebound basket off her own miss cut Maryland’s lead to 42-41 with 12:55 remaining.

That’s would be the closest Duke would get. Walker-Kimbrough hit a jumper in transition, Brene Moseley came off the bench to hit a 3 and Walker-Kimbrough knocked down her second 3 of the half to push the Maryland lead back to 50-41 with 10 minutes left.

UCONN BEATS TEXAS

Geno Auriemma reached another milestone in record fashion.

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The Hall of Famer became the second coach to achieve 100 victories in the NCAA Tournament as his UConn Huskies pulled off a record rout of Texas, 105-54, on Saturday in the Sweet 16. Auriemma joined Pat Summitt, who finished with 112 victories in her career, as the only two coaches in men’s or women’s basketball to reach that milestone.

“That’s lots of wins, 100 wins in the NCAA tournament,” Auriemma said. “Some people don’t get to play in the NCAA tournament ever or play a couple games. We’ve been pretty fortunate. We didn’t win anything in the NCAA in our first couple years.”

The Huskies stand three victories away from a third straight national championship and 10th overall.

Breanna Stewart was a key reason why the Huskies set the NCAA record for margin of victory in the regionals and beyond. The junior star had 31 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.

“(Today) was a lot of fun,” Stewart said. “Right from the start shots were going in and we were being aggressive. … Texas has a big presence inside, big post players. We knew if we got them moving a little bit, we could get any shot we wanted.”

The Huskies shot a blistering 56 percent from the field and became the eighth team to put up more than 100 points in the regionals.

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“Like I said to the coaching staff at Texas, when you shoot the ball as well as we did, we’re a really hard team to play against,” Auriemma said.

UConn (35-1) led 26-19 midway through the first half before blowing the game open with a 44-9 run spanning the half. The burst started with 13 straight points by the Huskies.

UConn led 52-24 at the half and scored 18 points in the first 3:30 of the second half to finish off the run.

Stewart surpassed her previous NCAA Tournament best of 29 points before leaving the game for good with just over 9 minutes left. Moriah Jefferson added a career-high 25 points – hitting 10 of her 12 shots – for the Huskies, who have advanced to the regional final for 10 straight seasons. They have been to the Final Four a record seven straight years.

“I can’t say enough about these two guys,” Auriemma said. “It seemed like they were on a whole different level than anyone else who was playing. You almost come to expect that from Stewie at this time of year. To see Moriah do what she did today, she’s come a long way in two years. I couldn’t be happier for these guys.”

Texas was making its first trip to the Sweet 16 since 2004. Coach Karen Aston has a young roster and the Longhorns may not have to wait long to get back. Ariel Atkins scored 11 to lead Texas (24-11). The Longhorns tried to slow the Huskies down with their big lineup of 6-foot-7 Imani Stafford-McGee and 6-5 Kelsey Lang. Aston went with the pair at the first media timeout and her team trailing 13-6. The Longhorns were within seven points with 9:36 left before the speedy Huskies made their run.

“They are a tremendous basketball team, and I say that in every sense of the word,” Aston said. “They play the game at a high level on the offensive and defensive end. It was not a good day for us. We weren’t patient enough to not let them have extra possessions. Our defense wasn’t as connected as it needed to be.”

UConn will face either Dayton or Louisville in the regional finals.


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