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Conway, SC — It’s Championship Sunday in the ACC, which featured the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Duke Blue Devils. The game was a re-match of the 2014 Championship game in which the Irish won their first of three consecutive championships.
They looked to win their fourth straight with only the Blue Devils standing in their way. If the regular season match-up between these two teams was any indication of how this game would go, winning wouldn’t be easy.
Notre Dame came out hard from the get go and they never slowed down. Duke didn’t score their first points until a minute and a half into the game and were stuck playing catch up from that point on. The Fighting Irish went into the half with a 43-31 lead.
The start of the second half was a different story. Duke came out hot and went on a 10-0 run. Unfortunately, they couldn’t keep the momentum on their side. Notre Dame hit multiple three-pointers and ran away with it from there.
With a final of 84-61, The Irish are the 2017 ACC Women’s Champions for the fourth year in a row.
“I think it's the kind of thing where you don't really appreciate it so much in the moment, and then you look back and you go, dang, four straight years, we've done pretty well,” said Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw.
Notre Dame had five players finish with points in the double-digits: Arike Odunbowale with 21, Briana Turner with 18, Erin Boley with 14, Marina Mabrey with 13 and Lindsay Allen with 11. Duke was led by Lexie Brown and Rebecca Greenwell with 16 and 12 points, respectively.
Brown said, “[Getting to the Finals] was definitely a lot of fun. I would not want to go on this run with any other group of girls.”
The season isn’t over for the Blue Devils though, as both teams look ahead to the NCAA Tournament in the coming weeks.
Greenwell echoed Brown’s statements then added, “We're just going to learn and grow from it and carry it on into the tournament this year.”