Boxscore

FRESNO, Calif. - It's March and thus it's Louisiana Tech's time of the year.

The sixth-ranked Lady Techsters (25-2) played one of their most complete games of the season Wednesday in defeating Boise State 100-56 in quarterfinal action of the 2004 McCaffrey Western Athletic Conference Tournament in Fresno, Calif.

Tech jumped out to an early lead behind its tenacious man-to-man full court press before a slight lull late in the first half allowed Boise State to cut the advantage to 43-28 with 4:30 to play.

Second-year head coach Kurt Budke called a 30-second timeout to discuss the 9-2 Broncos run, and his team responded, forcing seven turnovers in seven straight Broncos possessions and outscoring Boise State 23-0 to end the first half ahead 66-28.

"I've got veteran players who have been to the NCAA Tournament," said Tech head coach Kurt Budke, who saw his team set WAC Tournament records for most points in a game, most points in a half and largest margin of victory. "We talked about what we needed to do and that was turn it up defensively."

Tech hit 62 percent of its field goals in the first half, forced 19 first-half turnovers and recorded 13 steals. The pressure defense by Tech's guard aresenal of Erica Smith-Taylor, Amber Obaze, Tasha Crain and Lakiste Barkus forced the Broncos out of their offense and totally shut down Boise State's triangle offense in the opening 20 minutes of play.

"It started on the defensive end," said Crain, who finished the game with nine points, four steals and four assists in 20 minutes of action. "The full-court pressure created easy offense for us."

When Tech wasn't scoring off its turnovers, the Lady Techsters were pounding the Broncos inside with Trina Frierson and Amisha Carter. The duo continued their dominance of WAC opponents, as Frierson scored a game-high 19 points in 19 minutes while Carter added 14 points and nine rebounds in 22 minutes.

"We liked to run up and down; that's our type of game," said Frierson. "We run and gun and it makes it fun."

Smith-Taylor added 15 points and a career-high nine assists in only 20 minutes of action while Barkus added 13 points and Obaze 12 points.

Freshman Michelle Hessing led Boise State with 13 points while Lynette Grondin and Nadia Begay added 10 points each.

Tech won its 24th straight conference tournament game with the last loss coming against Western Kentucky in the championship game of the 1995 Sun Belt Conference Tournament.

With the win, the Lady Techsters advanced to the semifinals of the tournament and will host the winner of SMU and UTEP.