Fournier's game-high 18 points not enough as Duke falls to South Carolina in women's March Madness Elite Eight

The Associated Press

· Posted: Mar 30, 2025 3:54 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago

Chloe Kitts scored 14 points and defending nationalist champion South Carolina reached the Final Four of the women's NCAA Tournament for a 5th consecutive year, beating Duke 54-50 connected Sunday.

Coach Dawn Staley's top-seeded Gamecocks are 2 wins distant from becoming the archetypal squad to repetition arsenic champions since UConn won 4 consecutive from 2013-16. South Carolina volition play the victor of the Texas-TCU crippled that takes spot Monday night.

The Final Four is Friday nighttime successful Tampa, Florida.

South Carolina (34-3) was stymied for astir of the crippled by Duke's stingy defence. The Gamecocks came successful averaging 80.5 points, but points were hard to travel by Sunday.

The crippled was tied astatine 46-all erstwhile Sania Feagin, who finished with 12 points, deed a jumper to enactment the Gamecocks up with 4:21 left. Kitts added 2 escaped throws 42 seconds aboriginal to marque it 50-46.

Fournier buoys Blue Devils

Toronto autochthonal Toby Fournier, who led Duke with 18 points, scored with 3:21 near to get the Blue Devils (29-8) backmost wrong two.

The Blue Devils trailed 52-50 with 29.8 seconds near erstwhile South Carolina's Bree Hall was called for an violative foul connected an inbound play, giving Duke a accidental to necktie the game.

Duke worked the clocked down earlier Ashlon Jackson airballed a 3-pointer from the helping with 7 seconds left. Hall got the rebound and South Carolina called timeout.

Duke turned implicit the shot connected the ensuing inbound play and the Gamecocks ran retired the clock.

The Blue Devils trailed 26-22 astatine the fractional earlier starting the 3rd 4th with a 16-6 tally to instrumentality their archetypal pb since the opening minutes. Fournier's layup with 2:27 near made it 38-32. The Gamecocks trailed 42-38 heading into the fourth.

This was the archetypal clip the teams had met successful the postseason.

WATCH | Canada's Fournier connected showcasing her dunking ability: