Sarah Strong scored 21 points and Blanca Quinonez added 20 off the bench as top-seeded UConn handled its business with a 70-52 in over No. 6-seed Notre Dame on Sunday afternoon in an NCAA Tournament Regional 1 final at Fort Worth, Texas.

UConn (38-0), the defending national champion, won its 54th consecutive game and advanced to the Women’s Final Four on Friday in Phoenix where it will play either South Carolina or TCU.

The Huskies earned an 85-47 victory over Notre Dame at home on Jan. 19 but this game was more competitive as the stakes were much higher.

UConn took its first lead at 5-6 with 4:45 remaining the first quarter and slowly wore down Notre Dame, going up 20-11 after one quarter and 32-25 at halftime.

After a Fighting Irish rally midway through the third period, the Huskies led 47-36 heading into the forth. Quinonez’s 3-pointer with 5:43 remaining in the game increased the Huskies’ lead to 63-44 and UConn cruised to the finish.

Azzi Fudd added 13 points for the Huskies, while Quinonez had a team-high eight rebounds. UConn scored 19 points off 18 Notre Dame turnovers and had a 35-29 rebounding advantage.

Hannah Hidalgo led Notre Dame (25-11) with 22 points and 11 rebounds, while Vanessa de Jesus had eight points with five rebounds.

Fudd’s steal and assist to Quinonez produced a layup on the final possession of the first quarter and sent the Huskies to their 20-11 lead.

Notre Dame reeled off an 11-4 spurt that started late in the first quarter and was punctuated by a 3-pointer by Hidalgo that trimmed UConn’s advantage to 24-20. The Huskies responded with three straight baskets to lead 30-20 after Strong canned a jumper at the 2:34 mark before settling into a seven-point halftime advantage.

Quinonez has season-high 14 points before halftime to lead all scorers and was the only player from either team in double figures. Hidalgo paced the Fighting Irish with nine points in the first half.

Strong’s layup on the break with 8:43 to play in the third period gave UConn a 38-26 lead before the Fighting Irish clamped down, holding the Huskies scoreless for nearly five minutes. But Notre Dame only scored four points over the stretch.

–Field Level Media

Rookie Adam Sykora scored for the second straight game, Igor Shesterkin made 27 saves and the host New York Rangers recorded a 3-1 victory over the Florida Panthers on Sunday afternoon.

The Rangers (30-35-9, 69 points) won their second straight following a season-high six-game skid, and did so after struggling to generate many chances in the opening 40 minutes.

Sykora broke the deadlock by getting through the slot and slightly past Florida’s Noah Gregor. As defenseman Adam Fox lifted a shot from the middle of the right circle, Sykora lifted his stick up just enough to deflect the puck into the net from in front of goalie Sergei Bobrovksy.

Playing in his third NHL career game since debuting Wednesday in Toronto, Sykora netted his first career game-winning goal. He scored New York’s third goal in its 6-1 rout of the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday by finishing off a 2-on-1 with Will Cuylle.

Conor Sheary scored on a shorthanded breakaway with 8:46 left in the third. Fox capped the scoring with a shorthanded empty-net tally with 3:54 left in the third.

Shesterkin nearly recorded his second shutout this season and stopped a four-game losing streak.

He highlighted the game with consecutive pad stops on Matthew Tkachuk with about 12 1/2 minutes left and used his glove to snatch an attempt from Vinnie Hinostroza during a Florida power play midway through the first.

Mackie Samoskevich scored in the final minutes as The Panthers (35-35-3, 73 points) fell to 2-6-0 in their past eight games.

Bobrovsky made 18 saves.

Mika Zibanejad nearly scored for New York during a power play with 95 seconds left in the second period but saw his shot from the right circle stop on the goal line. After the shot got by Bobrovsky, Gustav Forsling swept the puck away from the goal line.

The Panthers nearly took the lead 3:22 into the third when Tkachuk finished off a 2-on-1 with Carter Verhaeghe. The Rangers challenged for offsides and the goal was disallowed.

After Sykora’s goal, J.T. Miller stole the puck from Tkachuk at the blue line in the offensive zone and found Sheary. Sheary skated into the zone ahead of Florida defenseman Mike Benning and sent a shot from between the circles by Bobrovsky.

–Field Level Media

The New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins square off in a battle for second place in the Metropolitan Division when they face each other in Elmont, N.Y., on Monday.

As the clubs meet with one point separating them, the Islanders (42-27-5, 89 points) are on a mini two-game winning streak, and the Penguins (36-21-16, 88 points) are battling double trouble — an uneven stretch of games without two of their offensive catalysts.

The Islanders are coming off a 5-2 win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday, when they erased a two-goal deficit by scoring five goals in the second period.

“The rest of the games are playoff games,” Islanders forward Bo Horvat said. “They’re big games for us, big points, and we need all the wins we can get.”

New York has won three of its last four games, with positive signs all over.

Brayden Schenn, acquired from the St. Louis Blues at the trade deadline, scored a goal in a three-point game Saturday, his first multi-point performance since the move.

Matthew Schaefer, the rising star drafted first overall last summer, collected a pair of assists to tie the team record for points by a rookie defenseman (56, set by Stefan Persson in 1977-78).

With the likes of Horvat and Mat Barzal held off the scoresheet for New York, Marc Gatcomb emerged to snap a 36-game goal drought.

“We just keep sticking to the gameplan,” Gatcomb said. “We’ve been great with comebacks and stuff like that. We’ve been staying resilient. I think the main focus was just getting pucks on net. We got some good bounces there, and they just started going in.”

The Penguins, meanwhile, have lost three of four games, with the latest setback a 6-3 home loss at the hands of the Dallas Stars on Sunday.

Pittsburgh surrendered leads of 1-0 and 2-1 en route to the defeat, although the game was not as one-sided as the final score indicated. Dallas netted a pair of empty-net goals after the Penguins made it a 4-3 affair midway through the final period.

“We had a great start,” Penguins forward Bryan Rust said. “I thought we were in their face. We had some really good shifts. Got into penalty trouble. I think that hurt us. I don’t think we did a very good job of playing hard and simple to get that momentum back on our side.”

The Penguins are hoping for reinforcements to turn their fortunes in a hurry. Captain and leading scorer Sidney Crosby missed the Dallas game due to a lower-body injury. Evgeni Malkin has missed three games due to an upper-body issue.

They both practiced Sunday without contact jerseys, which bodes well.

“Guys have to take on different responsibilities, different minutes, you know, from maybe what they’ve had in the past,” Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse said. “Obviously, with Sid and with Geno, not one person is going to go in there and suddenly replace them. All these things have to be done by committee.”

Defenseman Erik Karlsson has elevated his play of late. Karlsson has posted consecutive games with one goal and two assists. He has netted two or more points in nine March games and collected 24 points (nine goals, 15 assists) in 15 games this month.

–Field Level Media