South Carolina’s failed comeback sends Stanford into NCAA Women’s Tournament Championship game

SAN ANTONIO – In a No.1 seed battle in Friday’s first women’s Final Four semifinal, Stanford survived 66-65 against South Carolina to advance to Sunday’s championship game.

Haley Jones, who led Stanford with 24 points, hit a jumper on a rebound to give the Cardinal a one point lead with 32 seconds left in a game that had a crazy finish.

“I just saw the ball bounce and most of my teammates were hitting bodies to open it. I just let it fly and I said, ‘Please, Jesus, come in’, and that ‘ is what happened, “end up being the winning shot. “ And then we just had to move on to the next game, there is no time to make noise, we had to come back on defense. ”

After a time out, South Carolina conceded the ball. Aliyah Boston had a shot blocked by Cameron Brink but got his own rebound before a steal from Ashten Prechtel returned the ball to Stanford.

After a foul in South Carolina, the Cardinal inflicted the ball on Brink, but it slipped away and the Gamecocks had a chance to take the winning basket. Brea Beal missed the shot on a basket practice, and Boston followed with a buzzer recoil that also missed.

“Bre had a great shot. Aliyah we should have boxed her, she had a great shot. Luckily it didn’t and we move on to Sunday,” Jones said.

Both teams struggled to keep up with each other’s strong defense, but the Gamecocks were particularly hard hit, finishing 11 of 37 in the paint. Stanford will go for the third NCAA title in the program on Sunday.

The Cardinal will face the winner of the UConn-Arizona game.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.