SPOKANE, Wash.-- In a physical and defensive contest, top-seeded Maryland ended Tennessee's season with a 58-48 winon Mondaynight at the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena in the Elite Eight. The Lady Vols closed the year with a record of 30-6.
Maryland (34-2) advances to its fifth Final Four (1982, 1989, 2006 and 2014 with its lone NCAA title coming in its third trip). The Terps have won 29 games in a row. The Terps will play defending national champion UConn (36-1)on Sundayin the semifinals.
Seniors Ariel Massengale (16 points and four assists) and Cierra Burdick (nine points and six rebounds) played their final game as Lady Vols. Both players were named to the Spokane Region ALl-Tournament Team.
Maryland finished the game on a 14-2 run, scoring the final seven points of the game.
Lexie Brown tallied 15 points, making three 3-pointers. Brionna Jones had 14 points and nine rebounds while Shatori Walker-Kimbrough added 12 points and seven boards. Walker-Kimbrough was named the Most Outstanding Player in the region.
Down, 46-44 with five minutes left, Maryland scored seven points in a row to take a 51-46 lead, which proved to be the decisive run of the low-scoring contest. Brown knocked down a 3-pointer and Lauren Mincy banked in a long jumper put the Terps ahead, 49-46, with3:33left in the game. After the teams combined to miss six shots in a row, Brown hit a layup with1:17left for the five-point Maryland lead.
Jones, Brene Moseley, Brown and Lauren Mincy combined to make six-of-seven free throws in the final 41.9 seconds to secure the win.
Midway through the second half, both teams got their shooting going as each team made three baskets in a row finished by a Massengale 3-pointer. That regained the lead for Tennessee at 42-41. A Lady Vols' 10-2 spurt put them ahead 44-41 with8:42on the clock.
Another Massengale 3-pointer and Burdick layup gave the Lady Vols a 34-29 lead with 14 minutes left in the second half. The Terps answered with a 10-0 run to take a 39-34 lead with less than 11 minutes to go, keyed by a Brown 3-pointer.
The Terps held a 22-21 lead at halftime as both teams played stellar defense causing struggles from the floor with each club shooting less than 33 percent. The Lady Vols (1-of-8) made the only 3-pointer of the half as Maryland missed all four of their attempts.
The teams combined to made just five of their final 25 field goal attempts. Brown's first bucket in two games with three seconds left in the first half ended a drought of more than four minutes.
Tennessee jumped out to a 9-2 lead early on, which was the largest lead for either team until the final minute of the game.