SPOKANE, Wash. — Duke didn’t have an answer for Laurin Mincy and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough on Saturday afternoon. The two Terrapins women’s basketball guards combined for 39 points on 14 of 23 shooting in the Sweet 16.

In the first half, Mincy drained four 3-pointers and scored 15 points. Then after the break, Walker-Kimbrough took over to pour in 18 of her 24 points.

Behind the hot shooting from their wings, the No. 1-seed Terps topped No. 4-seed Duke, 65-55, in a rematch of the 2006 national championship before an announced attendance of 8,686.

“We just love being able to beat Duke in the NCAA tournament,” said coach Brenda Frese, who manned the sidelines during the 78-75 overtime win nine years ago.

The Terps’ program-record 27th straight win sends them to Elite Eight for the 10th time in program history and fifth in the past seven seasons. They will play the winner of No. 2-seed Tennessee and No. 11-seed Gonzaga on Monday night in Spokane with a trip to the Final Four at stake.

Mincy’s performance came after a 27-point outing in the second round of the tournament, in which she knocked down six of her seven three-point attempts. She entered Saturday’s game as one of two Terps players with a win against Duke in her career, and she helped her teammates leave Spokane Arena with one.

“We haven’t been able to beat duke since [my] sophomore year,” Mincy said. “So it’s just very fitting that we come in here and beat them in the Sweet 16.”

Duke, which starts a lineup with three imposing post players, opened the game in a zone defense that caused the Terps to work the ball around the perimeter. The Blue Devils were able to limit the Terps’ transition opportunities, too, and made them work for buckets in a half-court offense.

But the Terps defense was equally stout at the other end. Frese had her guards sag off the perimeter to deny entry into the post, which worked to thwart passes to All-American center Elizabeth Williams.

“Brionna [Jones] did a phenomenal job of frustrating [Williams] and making her take the shots that she was rushing,” center Malina Howard said. “We just did a good job of containing her.

While Williams finished with 18 points, the Terps forced Duke into tough paint buckets and kept them off the offensive glass. The Blue Devils entered the contest with the fourth best rebounding margin in the country, but the Terps won the battle on the glass with a 33-24 rebounding edge.

Center Brionna Jones led the way with 10 boards and battled against Duke’s bigs for 10 points on 4 of 6 shooting.

The Terps took a 31-23 lead into halftime and pushed it to double-digits early in the second half with the help of Walker-Kimbrough. After the sophomore had six points before the break, she scored the Terps’ first nine points after halftime.

“Coach told us if we pass up an open shot, then it’s a bad shot,” Walker-Kimbrough said. “So [my teammates] started feeding me the ball and I just had to knock them down.”

Despite Walker-Kimbrough’s quick second-half start, though, Duke managed to cut the Terps’ lead to 42-41 at the 13-minute mark. But Walker-Kimbrough made sure the Terps remained ahead by nailing a pull-up jumper in transition and hitting a long 2-pointer with her toe on the line. Guard Brene Moseley added a 3-pointer in between Walker-Kimbrough’s buckets, and the Terps’ quick 7-0 run pushed their lead to 49-41.

Duke wouldn’t pull closer than five for the remainder of the game. And the Terps held on with star point guard Lexie Brown, who missed all seven of her field-goal attempts, looking on from the bench from the 11:28 mark to 28 seconds left in the game.

Without Brown’s typical production, Mincy and Walker-Kimbrough combined to masque the struggles of their floor general.

“We play for Laurin each and every game because we see how she fights,” Walker-Kimbrough said. “We just follow.”