Box Score 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. Maryland is 2-0 against the Blue Devils in the NCAA tournament.
"Just tremendously proud of our fight today," Frese said. "It wasn't an easy game. I thought that Duke kind of controlled some things in terms of kind of putting us into a half court team, but I thought we did a phenomenal job in the second half."
"The play, obviously, of these three up here, started with Shatori in terms of her confidence. But I think you were able to see our depth when we were able to call on Brene off the bench when Lexie was struggling in this game. And all season long we have been able to count on our ‑‑ on this team to be ready to play and we're just excited about advancing and moving on."
Elizabeth Williams led Duke (23-11) with 18 points and nine rebounds.
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.
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.
Maryland will play either second-seeded Tennessee (29-5) or 11th-seeded Gonzaga (26-7) Monday at 9 p.m. ET in the Spokane Regional Final on ESPN.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
