Stanford beats Arizona 54-53 to win the 2021 NCAA women’s championship

CARMEN MANDATO / GETTY IMAGES

As usual with March Madness, The 2021 NCAA Women’s title ended in exhilarating fashion! The Stanford Cardinal held on to defeat the Arizona Wildcats 54-53 to capture their first national championship since 1992.

The game went down to the wire, with the Wildcats having possession of the ball with 6.1 seconds left down 1 point. Arizona guard Aari Mcdonald missed a heavily contested last-second heave at the buzzer, leading to joyous celebrations from Stanford players and falling confetti.

Forward Haley Jones led the way for Stanford with 17 points and 8 rebounds and was named NCAA women’s tournament’s most outstanding player. Her teammates Cameron Brink (10 points & 3 blocks) and Lexie Hull (10 points & 10 rebounds) contributed significantly as well.

Stanford head coach Tara Vanderveer has now won her third National Title in her 35th year as the coach of the Cardinal. This past December, she became the all-time winningest coach in Division-1 women’s basketball history, passing retired Tennessee legend Pat Summitt with 1,099 wins. In response to her team’s victorious season amid the Covid-19 pandemic, she commented:

“This is the time we live in. Sometimes you just have to stick with things. For me as a coach, you want to win a national championship. We have had shots at it. I’ve had heartbreak with teams that had great shots of winning it. But this team won, and I’m so proud of them for what we might call the Covid Championship. It might have an asterisk. But it was tougher being down here.”

Arizona G Aari McDonald (Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)

For the Arizona Wildcats, their star point guard Aari McDonald finished with a game-high 22 points, despite only shooting 5-19 from the field. McDonald made a clutch play after clutch play down the stretch, including a big-time top-of-the-key three-pointer that brought Arizona within 1 with 3 minutes to go. Arizona head coach Adia Barnes spoke to reporters about her decision to draw the final play for Mcdonald:

“It was going to be Aari or nothing just because if you look at the game, really Aari was the one scoring.… At that point we’ve been on Aari’s back for the whole tournament. She’s got to take that shot. Unfortunately it still had a chance of going in. But I have to put the ball in her hands in that situation because she’s one of the reasons why we’re here.”

The NCAA Men’s championship is scheduled for Monday at 9:20 pm EST; featuring the Baylor Bears vs. the Gonzaga Bulldogs.