Freshman leads Lady Rebels to Mountain West title game — PHOTOS

UNLV’s women’s basketball team has become used to playing in high-pressure March games.

The Lady Rebels were in another one Tuesday night. They found themselves in a tight battle with Colorado State in the Mountain West tournament semifinals at the Thomas & Mack Center.

This time it wasn’t one of UNLV’s veterans that stepped up. Freshman Amarachi Kimpson scored a game-high 18 points, including seven in the fourth quarter, to help the top-seeded Lady Rebels pull away for a 62-52 win against the fifth-seeded Rams.

No. 21 UNLV will play for its third straight Mountain West tournament title at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday against seventh-seeded San Diego State, a 72-69 winner over Boise State in the late game Tuesday.

“(Kimpson) is a really tough player to stop one-on-one. That’s what I think because I see it in practice,” coach Lindy La Rocque said. “She kind of has a way of just finding and sneaking her way to the rim. … I have all the trust and faith in her that if she’s not going to get a shot up, she’s going to make the right play.”

Kimpson, the Mountain West’s freshman and sixth player of the year, shot 7 of 12 from the field. Junior point guard Kiara Jackson added 12 points and five assists.

The duo gave the Lady Rebels (29-2) another chance at a championship after the team clinched its third straight Mountain West regular-season crown earlier this year.

“We have full trust in (Kimpson),” junior forward Alyssa Brown said. “We know she’s a great playmaker. We like to feed off each other when she’s making plays and it opens stuff up in the post for us.”

UNLV led wire-to-wire, but Colorado State (20-11) cut its deficit to one possession twice in the fourth quarter.

The Rams scored the first four points of the final frame and trailed 41-39 with 7:53 remaining. Kimpson scored on the ensuing possession to give the Lady Rebels some cushion.

Colorado State then got within three points with 3:42 remaining. The Rams held UNLV scoreless for almost three minutes to trail just 48-45.

Brown responded by hitting a pair of free throws. Then Kimpson scored five points to complete a 7-0 Lady Rebels run that gave them a 55-45 lead.

UNLV was 7 of 8 from the free-throw line the final 1:23 to seal the win.

“It means a lot to me,” Kimpson said. “It’s my first go around with these girls. I want to get to the championship and I’m realizing what it takes to get there.”

Kimpson and Jackson were tasked with guarding Colorado State guard McKenna Hofschild, who entered Tuesday leading the conference in scoring with 22.5 points per game. The duo held Hofschild to nine points on 4 of 12 shooting.

“We got to build a wall when it comes to (Hofschild),” Kimpson said. “She’s a great player who can score at all three levels. It’s a team effort to stop one person, so we just have to help each other. On our whole defense.”

UNLV raced out to a 16-7 first-quarter lead with six Lady Rebels scoring in the opening 10 minutes.

UNLV shot just 4 of 15 in the second quarter and led 26-21 at halftime.

The Lady Rebels opened the third quarter on a 9-0 run to go ahead 35-21, their largest lead of the game. Colorado State started chipping away from there.

“It was a grind. It was March basketball. It was hard,” La Rocque said. “A lot of different things felt hard because you’re playing a great team. You just find ways to win, find ways to win one more possession, to win one more rebound. That’s what it takes at this time of the year.”

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.