N.C. State women upend No. 19 Vanderbilt

The North Carolina State senior was finally back.

McDowell scored 12 points and sparked a decisive first-half run in her first game back from offseason knee surgery to lead the Wolfpack past No. 19 Vanderbilt 76-67.

Ashley Key scored a career-high 23 points to lead the Wolfpack (3-2), while Khadijah Whittington had 14 points and 10 rebounds to help the Wolfpack beat the Commodores for the second straight season.

The Wolfpack turned in a solid all-around performance, shooting 52 percent and controlling the glass against the bigger Commodores (5-2) while holding the visitors to 42-percent shooting. Key led the way, adding five assists and four steals while setting her career-high in scoring for the second time in three games.

But Key took a backseat to McDowell on this night.

McDowell averaged 11.2 points and was a third-team all-Atlantic Coast Conference performer last season before tearing her left anterior cruciate ligament in March. She was injured when she landed awkwardly on a jumper during the first half of the Wolfpack’s first-round loss to Middle Tennessee in the NCAA tournament.

She had surgery in April and rehabbed through the summer, then practiced with the team on a limited basis. She gradually increased her workload until a team doctor cleared her to play Wednesday morning.

She hit four straight 3-pointers in the first half and played 21 minutes, finishing 4-for-7 from the field. McDowell also battled some minor cramping in her left leg, a sign that she wasn’t quite in game shape just yet.

Not that any of that mattered.

“It felt real good out there,” McDowell said. “To be honest, it doesn’t even feel like I’ve been through everything that I’ve been through.”

Wearing a bulky black brace on her left knee, McDowell drew cheers as she went to the scorer’s table to check in with 14:47 left in the first half. Once she stepped onto the court, she smiled broadly as she jogged up court to join her teammates.

She missed her first jumper from the left corner on her second possession but knocked down a 3-pointer off a feed from Sasha Reaves to tie it at 12 with 11:39 left before the break.

She went on to hit two more 3s in the next 2 minutes, the second putting N.C. State ahead to stay at 20-19 with 9:49 left. That basket started a 12-0 run, which ended when McDowell made her fourth 3-pointer off a feed from Tiffany Stansbury for a 29-19 lead with 7:17 left.

“I was more than excited,” Key said. “Last year we considered ourselves buddies on the wings. Just to see her come out and look like her old self again, that was more than everything to me.”

With McDowell hitting four of the Wolfpack’s six 3s in the first half, the Commodores had to come out of the zone — which negated their size advantage with the 6-foot-4 Liz Sherwood and the 6-3 Carla Thomas — and helped open things up for Whittington, Stansbury (11 points) and Reaves (eight second-half points).

“When you’ve got post players like that and your guards are hitting 3s, you’re tough to defend,” Vanderbilt coach Melanie Balcomb said.

The Wolfpack shot 50 percent to take a 37-27 halftime lead. N.C. State quickly increased that lead, using a 9-0 run and getting a pair of transition layups from Monica Pope to lead 50-31 with 15:35 left.

Vanderbilt never got closer than nine points until the final minutes, shooting just 42 percent for the game.

Caroline Williams scored 18 points and hit six 3-pointers to lead the Commodores, who had won their past five games.