Tuesday, March 27, 2001
SW Missouri St. 104, Washington 87
By BOB BAUM
AP Sports Writer
SPOKANE, Wash. — From one side of the continent to the other, Jackie Stiles has lit up the scoreboard and revved up the excitement in the women's NCAA tournament. Now she is headed back to Missouri to the biggest stage of all.
With a lot of help from her friends — especially Tara Mitchem — Stiles brought Southwest Missouri State to St. Louis and the women's Final Four with a 104-87 victory over Washington Monday night in the West Regional final.
“I can't imagine a better way to end a career,” Stiles said. “For it to be in St. Louis, you can't script it any better than that. It's just an incredible opportunity for us. I don't know. I just can't describe right now what this team is feeling.”
Southwest Missouri State (29-5) will play Purdue in the semifinals Friday night in St. Louis, just a 3 1/2-hour drive from the Lady Bears' Springfield campus.
“It's just amazing,” Mitchem said. “It couldn't get any better than this. Well, we could win two more games and it would be better.”
Stiles scored 32 points despite sitting out 4 1/2 minutes early in the second half and fouling out with 3:25 to play. As she left the court, she drew a standing ovation from the capacity crowd of just under 11,000, nearly all of them Washington fans.
The 5-foot-8 dynamo — the leading scorer in women's NCAA Division I history — led the Lady Bears to their second Final Four and first since 1992.
“We are definitely living out a dream,” SMS coach Cheryl Burnett said. “We have incredible leadership. They won at Rutgers, then came out here and beat Duke, the top seed, and Washington on what amounted to be its homecourt. Now, who knows what can happen?”
Stiles scored 73 points in her two games in Spokane to become the first woman to top 1,000 in a season in Division I.
She isn't the only blonde, ponytailed big-time sharpshooter for SMS. Mitchem scored 23 points on 7-for-7 shooting, three of them 3-pointers, and 6-of-6 free throws.
“Words can't describe how incredible my teammates have been,” Stiles said. “I feel a lot of times I get more credit than I deserve. They deserve even more credit than I do. Basketball is a team game. It takes everybody to win.”
The Huskies thought they did a decent job on Stiles.
“But to have a player like Tara Mitchem step up, that makes it really hard,” the Huskies' Megan Franza said, “because you have to focus your defense on a player who scores 30 points a game.”
Southwest Missouri State shot 63 percent from the field (35-for-56), including 8-of-15 3-pointers in its biggest offensive game of the season.
“They're definitely a team,” Washington coach June Daugherty said. “We know that. It's not just Jackie Stiles. I think they can win it all, and I hope they do.”
Erika Rante added 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Lady Bears. Loree Payne scored 17 for Washington (22-10), including three 3-pointers. Kellie O'Neill added 14, while Megan Franza, Andrea Lalum and LeAnn Sheets each scored 12.
Washington, the No. 6 seed, trailed by as many as 20 in the first half and was down 51-33 at the break.
Stiles missed a layup and drew her fourth foul during a 14-1 Huskies' run that cut the lead to 63-54 on Payne's 15-footer with 13:16 to play.
With Stiles on the bench, the Lady Bears scored the next 10 points, including 3-pointers by Mitchem and Morgan Hohenberger, to boost the lead 73-54 with 11:31 remaining.
“You never want to see Jackie in foul trouble, but the last thing to do was panic. We had to stay calm, stay relaxed and somebody needed to step up. It didn't matter who did it. We wanted to make it to St. Louis and we weren't going to lose.”
Stiles came back at the 9:46 mark, promptly made a 12-footer and a 3-pointer and the lead stretched to 23.
After Stiles fouled out with her team leading 92-75, the Huskies cut it to 92-80 on Franza's two free throws with 2:33 to play, and were down 94-85 on Payne's 3-pointer with 1:20 to go.
But that's as close as it got.
Southwest Missouri State is the only Final Four team that didn't play its first two tournament games at home. SMS beat Rutgers in Piscataway, N.J., before traveling to Spokane.
WASHINGTON (87)
fg ft rb
min m-a m-a o-t a pf tp
Lalum 28 4-9 4-4 1-3 4 3 12
Payne 27 5-9 4-6 0-0 3 1 17
Sheets 30 3-7 6-9 3-5 0 2 12
Giu Mendiola 31 4-11 0-2 5-8 2 4 8
Franza 31 2-11 7-9 0-0 6 4 12
Sorenson 7 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Oneill 18 6-8 1-1 2-7 0 4 14
Autrey 4 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Pimley 13 1-3 0-0 0-0 2 2 2
Gio Mendiola 11 4-6 0-0 1-2 0 2 10
_______________________________________________
TOTALS 200 29-65 22-31 12-25 17 23 87
_______________________________________________
Percentages: FG-.446, FT-.710. 3-Point Goals:
7-23, .304 (Lalum 0-3, Payne 3-6, Giu Mendiola
0-4, Franza 1-4, Oneill 1-1, Autrey 0-1, Pimley
0-1, Gio Mendiola 2-3). Team rebounds: 4. Blocked
shots: 3 (Lalum 3). Turnovers: 17 (Payne 3,
Autrey 2, Franza 2, Giu Mendiola 2, Lalum 2,
Sheets 2, Pimley). Steals: 10 (Franza 3, Oneill
3, Gio Mendiola 2, Lalum, Pimley).
SW MISSOURI ST (104)
fg ft rb
min m-a m-a o-t a pf tp
Mitchem 36 7-7 6-6 1-3 4 1 23
Deer 35 2-6 5-6 0-10 5 4 9
Rante 34 8-10 0-1 3-11 2 4 16
Stiles 32 11-22 6-6 1-2 1 5 32
Campbell 27 2-3 0-0 2-3 8 3 4
Mcmorris 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Cavey 12 1-2 0-0 1-1 1 4 2
Kiss 2 0-0 4-5 0-1 0 1 4
Kadic 2 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Vicente 15 2-2 5-6 0-2 4 2 9
Hohenberger 4 2-4 0-0 0-0 0 0 5
_______________________________________________
TOTALS 200 35-56 26-30 8-33 25 24 104
_______________________________________________
Percentages: FG-.625, FT-.867. 3-Point Goals:
8-15, .533 (Mitchem 3-3, Deer 0-3, Stiles 4-8,
Hohenberger 1-1). Team rebounds: 6. Blocked
shots: 1 (Cavey). Turnovers: 16 (Stiles 4, Deer
3, Mitchem 3, Rante 3, Vicente 2, Cavey). Steals:
6 (Deer 3, Mitchem, Rante, Vicente).
__________________________________
Washington 33 54 - 87
Sw Missouri St 51 53 - 104
__________________________________
Technical fouls: None.
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SW Missouri St. 104, Washington 87 
