Sweet 16 Recap: Dana Evans hits deep threes, plays with no fear to lead Louisville past Oregon

Dana Evans had a breakout performance with 29 points and, with her team’s lead diminished to six, went on a 7-0 individual run to help the No. 2 seed Louisville Cardinals pull away in fourth and defeat the No. 6 seed Oregon Ducks 60-42 on Sunday night in San Antonio.

After Evans’ 7-0 run, Louisville continued the run to 13-0 and led by 19 with 3:35 to play before cruising to victory.

Nyara Sabally had 14 points for Oregon but went down late in the third with an ankle injury and did not return. The Ducks were only down eight went she was injured. Oregon’s Erin Boley also had 14 points and added 11 rebounds.

Oregon point guard Maddie Scherr, who was filling in for an injured Te-Hina Paopao, also hurt her ankle. She left at the tail end of the first and sat out the rest of the contest.

Evans’ 7-0 run came after Sedona Prince began the fourth with a ton of energy after seeing her frontcourt mate go down. She made a deep two and then two free throws to cut Louisville’s lead to six. Taylor Mikesell then missed a triple that would have cut it to three.

On the play after Sabally left the court, Louisville brought a full court press, got a steal and got a layup from Elizabeth Dixon to make it 43-33 in its favor entering the fourth.

Louisville upped its lead to 18 one minute and 57 seconds into the second half, but Oregon went on a 9-0 run after that to cut it to nine.

Evans scored 13 points in the second after being held scoreless in the first. She outscored Oregon 13-6 in the frame and Louisville won 19-6 overall to take a 29-14 lead heading into halftime. The two biggest shots from Evans were a three that made it 21-10 and a reverse layup that made it 23-10. She had started putting some points on the board when she scored six of eight on an 8-0 Louisville run to open the period. That run made it 18-8 in favor of the Cardinals.

Louisville was 5-of-20 from the field in the first and Oregon was 4-of-15.