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Rick Insell (left), Dor Saar (right)

 David Russell/Nashville Post

The Middle Tennessee State women’s basketball team used a huge comeback Friday to record its first NCAA Tournament victory since 2007.

Trailing by 18 points with less than four minutes remaining in the second quarter, the Blue Raiders rallied for a 71-69 win that wasn’t secured until Louisville’s last-second, desperation heave bounced off the rim.

The 18-point comeback is tied for the third largest in the history of the women’s tournament, according to ESPN.

MTSU’s victory was also its 20th straight, as the Blue Raiders (30-4) had won all 16 of their Conference USA contests this season and then swept three games en route to the league's tournament title.

NCAA Tournament victories had been hard to come by in recent years for Middle. The Blue Raiders had lost nine straight first-round games before Friday. The team’s last tournament win had come against Gonzaga in March 2007.

Eleventh-seeded MTSU advances to play the winner of Friday’s game between third-seeded LSU and 14th-seeded Rice on Sunday in Baton Rouge.

The Blue Raiders’ win came against one of the better programs in women’s college basketball, as sixth-seeded Louisville (24-10) had advanced to the tournament’s Elite Eight in each of the last five years.

The Cardinals got off to a great start, leading 28-12 at the end of the first quarter and 38-20 in the closing minutes of the second quarter. But the Blue Raiders scored the final seven points of that quarter to trim the deficit to 38-27 at halftime. MTSU outscored Louisville 24-12 in the third quarter, taking a 51-50 lead into the fourth quarter on Savannah Wheeler’s free throw.

The Blue Raiders took the lead for good, 55-54, on Anastasiia Boldyreva’s short jump shot with 6:49 left in the game. But MTSU had to survive a last-second scare, when Louisville’s Merissah Russell’s shot from beyond halfcourt nearly went in as time expired.

Jalynn Gregory, a Lafayette native and Macon County High alum, led the Blue Raiders with 24 points and four assists. Wheeler added 22 points, 20 of which came in the second half. Boldyreva had 11 points and a game-high 12 rebounds.

This story was first published by our sister publication Nashville Post.