SPOKANE, Wash. — LSU senior Aneesah Morrow took over the team’s huddle in the fourth quarter Friday night.

For most of the game up to that point, Morrow had carried the Tigers on her back.

But after N.C. State regained the lead, she looked at her teammates and told them she wasn’t ready for her college career to end.

“Nobody likes to lose,” Morrow said. “I told them we got to take our matchups personally. We have to be able to dominate and we have to be able to make defensive stops.”

Over the remainder of the game, third-seeded LSU did just that, beating second-seeded N.C. State 80-73 to advance to the Tigers’ third straight Elite Eight.

Morrow led the team with 30 points, 19 rebounds, three steals and two blocks. But it was Mikaylah Williams, Sa’Myah Smith and Kailyn Gilbert who came up clutch down the stretch.

Williams and Smith scored all of the Tigers’ final 16 points and Gilbert had a monstrous block with under two minutes to play that changed the momentum of the game.

The game went back and forth like an oscillating fan. The Tigers punched first in the first quarter before the Wolfpack responded in the second to take a four-point lead at the half.

LSU owned the third quarter and N.C. State had the edge early in the fourth.

The Tigers were down 69-64 with 4:29 left in regulation. Then, a proverbial flip switched.

LSU outscored the Wolfpack State 16-4 the rest of the game.

“That’s just a little bit of heart,” Williams said, “and a little bit of luck that them shots finally started to fall at the end of the game.”

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The game reached an inflection point when Gilbert swatted away Zoe Brooks’ layup.

“I’m not even going to lie. Like, she was cooking me,” Gilbert said. “She had me beat on that play, and I just saw that she brought the ball in front of me a little bit, so I went up and got it and then shot, chased it down, and pushed the ball up.”

Shayeann Day-Wilson secured the loose ball. On the other end, Williams made the go-ahead basket with 1:07 left in the game.

N.C. State never saw the ball go through its net again.

Brooks scored 11 of her team-high 21 points in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, on an off night for Flau’jae Johnson, who exited in the fourth quarter after colliding with another player, Smith stepped up in a big way. She finished with 21 points and 11 rebounds.

Johnson’s status for the remainder of the NCAA Tournament wasn’t immediately known. Kim Mulkey said Johnson was “seeing double” and wasn’t allowed to re-enter the game during crunch time.

After experiencing its first real scare of the NCAA Tournament, LSU showed true grit.

The Tigers will play UCLA for a chance at a Final Four berth Sunday.

“You don’t take it for granted,” coach Kim Mulkey said of the Tigers’ third straight Elite 8. “You just don’t. We made plays down the stretch. We made some bad plays down the stretch, but we made plays down the stretch to pull it out and win, and it means we did some good stuff.”