With 62 seconds left in a bruising road game that would end with 56 fouls, Notre Dame junior guard Sonia Citron got knocked hard to the floor and lingered there long enough that teammate Anna DeWolfe had to take the resulting free throws for her.
“I was going up for the rebound and then, all of a sudden, I was just face-planting into the floor,” Citron said, “so I can’t tell you what happened.”
Head coach Niele Ivey can. As her ND women’s basketball team continues to add healthy bodies and recalibrate its team chemistry, roles and rotations, the 19th-ranked Irish added toughness to their building résumé on Thursday night and flexed it from start to finish in an 86-76 ACC conquest of Virginia.
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And four games now removed from a 7 ½-week absence caused by a knee sprain, Citron was back on the court at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Va., at the next dead ball to help Notre Dame close out the victory on a night when she surpassed the 1,000 career-point milestone.
“[Teams] are playing us really physical,” Ivey said. “We always talk about making sure that we bring the energy, set the tone, and then we’re going to match whatever people give us. And I thought our team really grew tonight in that area.
“I thought that they were tough. There were a lot of calls that didn’t go our way, but we didn’t hang our heads. We just got to the next play. So, it’s making us tougher.”
And opportunistic.
The Irish (13-3, 4-2 ACC) shot 44 free throws — tied for the sixth most in school history — and made 33, tied for fifth. Citron sank all 12 of her attempts on the way to a season-high 28 points, one off her career high. She’s the eighth player now in Irish history to be perfect from the line in 10 or more attempts, with Natalie Novosel the most recent to join that select club 12 seasons ago.
Citron added four rebounds, three assists, one blocked shot and three steals to an impressive stat line that included 37 minutes played.
“I knew coming back things weren’t going to be perfect, just coming off an injury,” said Citron, who wears a thigh-to-ankle sleeve/brace on her right leg. “But obviously, it feels really good to just feel like I’m coming into myself and then just progressing a little every game.”
Freshman Hannah Hidalgo continues to progress as well, though she had to work around her fourth foul in the game’s final four minutes, and she continues to break records.
The nation’s fourth-leading scorer collected 23 points, 11 of hers coming from the free-throw line in 14 attempts, to go along with five rebounds and nine assists. Her 14th game of 20 or more points is the most by an ND freshman, supplanting Beth Morgan’s 30-year-old standard.
And yet defense continues to be the calling card for the 5-foot-6 Haddonfield, N.J., product.
The nation’s leader in steals surpassed Skylar Diggins’ mark of most games in a career with six or more steals with her ninth such game in her 16 collegiate contests. The former Irish All-American and former record-holder amassed hers over a four-year career.
Hidalgo also nudged Diggins from the top spot for steals by a Notre Dame freshman in a season with her 91st Thursday night. She’s now 25 away from tying the school record for all classes and sits in seventh place.
Ivey, incidentally occupies the Nos. 3 and 4 spots on the single-season steals list from her playing days at ND, with 95 in 2000 and 94 in the national championship season of 2001. Hidalgo is also on pace to obliterate the record for steals per game in a season of 3.3, set by Mary Gavin in 1988.
“It’s amazing, the things that she does defensively,” Ivey said. “The way that she can read defenses and just her energy on defense is just something you don’t see very often. It’s just something she loves to do. She’s great at it. ... It’s contagious. She makes everybody else play with that same level of passion.”
The functional part of that is the Irish coaxing a season-high 23 turnovers from a plucky Virginia team that’s been a much tougher out than its record (8-9, 0-5) might suggest. The Cavs, for instance, fell 79-76 to defending national champ LSU back in November on a neutral court.
They fell in part to the Irish on Thursday night because of their 35 fouls and a 26-11 deficit on points off turnovers, even though Notre Dame had a flurry of their own miscues late as Virginia cut a 20-point second-half deficit to six with 2:47 left in the game.
But the Irish always had an answer in the closing minutes, avoiding theme night in the ACC of ranked teams getting upset on the road. No. 4 NC State, No. 14 Virginia Tech and 15th-ranked Florida State all lost to unranked teams, with the Wolfpack and Hokies falling by double digits to Miami and Duke, respectively.
One of those key plays was Citron’s defensive rebound with the Irish up eight at the 1:02 mark when Virginia freshman Olivia McGhee knocked her to the ground.
“She was so tough,” Ivey said of Citron. “She’s our glue. And I’m just so happy for her to have this huge accomplishment [1,000 career points]. She does so much for this program and for me. To celebrate this with her is just amazing. So, really proud of the group and so proud of the accomplishment of Soni.”
Maddy Westbeld added 14 points and nine rebounds.
Virginia leading scorer and rebounder Camryn Taylor, a former Marquette transfer, was limited to six points and three rebounds and fouled out having played only 14 minutes. Former Irish forward Sam Brunelle, in her sixth collegiate season and second with the Cavs, came off the bench and played 15 scoreless minutes. She missed both her shot attempts and committed a foul and a turnover.
Next up for the Irish is a Sunday road date at Wake Forest (4-14, 0-6) before the schedule takes a more challenging turn.
“I feel like coach Ivey prepares us for teams giving us their best game,” Citron said. “Obviously, they’re going to play us tough. They’re not just going to give us the game. We kind of expect it.
“We want to play just as tough back and not make us play on our heels and just keep staying aggressive.”
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