Jan. 15, 2011
RUSTON - Late in Louisiana Tech's 94-92 triple overtime win over Fresno State late Thursday night at the Save Mart Center, the Lady Techster bench looked like a MASH unit.
It came as no surprise.
During moments of the 55 minutes of up-and-down-the-court, leave-it-all-on-the-line basketball that both teams played, physical and mental exhaustion won out.
But in the end, Teresa Weatherspoon's bunch - cramping, fatigued and exhausted - cheated their physical ailments to pull out a huge win in the early portion of the Western Athletic Conference season.
And the Lady Techsters players - each and every one of them - left their coach swelling with pride.
"Our kids fought hard," Weatherspoon said. "To come into a place like this and get a win, it is big for us. Our kids were truly persistent tonight. We wanted to win. "
The odds were stacked against LA Tech even before the opening tip. The Lady Techsters were on the tail end of a 10-day road trip that had already seen the team travel from Louisiana to San Jose, California to Honolulu, Hawaii and back to Fresno.
And to make matters more difficult, LA Tech was facing a Fresno State team that hadn't lost a Western Athletic Conference regular season game since March 2, 2008 - a string of 20 straight wins and only three shy of LA Tech's league record of 23.
However, as the ball was tossed into the air and a national television audience tuned in, the Lady Techsters put all of that in their rear-view mirrors and just played basketball.
As Weatherspoon acknowledged following the game, it wasn't always pretty basketball - but it was hard-fought.
"It was tough," Weatherspoon said. "It was grueling. It was mind-over-matter."
After falling behind by 13 points in the second half, the Lady Techster players could have easily let up and allowed the weariness of 10 days on the road take over.
When All-American candidate Adrienne Johnson fouled out with 14 seconds to play in regulation and her team leading 74-71, the remaining five on the floor could have looked lost.
And when Fresno State freshman guard Taylor Thompson came up with a loose basketball and drained a 25-footer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime, the entire Tech bench - from players to coaches to support staff - could have questioned whether this was not their night.
However, that simply didn't happen.
"Our kids never folded their tents," Weatherspoon said. "The difference in our team (tonight) is the moment we made mistakes, we didn't curl up. We continued to fight. We might have made a negative play, but we found a way then to create a positive one."
Weatherspoon stressed that it took a total team effort. Truer words she has never spoken.
However, it also took individual players giving Herculean-like efforts.
It started with senior guard Tarkeisha Wysinger-Mackey. Just five days after playing all 45 minutes in an overtime win at Hawaii (despite throwing up before the game and during halftime), Wysinger-Mackey fought off fatigue and severe cramps to set a LA Tech record that might not ever be broken.
Wysinger-Mackey's 51 minutes played were the most ever by a Lady Techster, surpassing the previous record of 47 minutes set by Lakiste Barkus in Tech's thrilling double overtime win over the same Fresno State program in the semifinals of the 2005 WAC Tournament.
On multiple occasions during the second half and three overtime periods, Wysinger-Mackey spent each timeout holding onto teammates drinking a much liquid as possible while Tech Athletics Trainer Michele Dummett worked massaged the severe cramps in her calves.
Eventually, the cramps won out when with 55 seconds remaining in the final overtime period when Wysinger-Mackey collapsed under the Tech goal in agonizing pain as play was stopped for a few minutes.
It was one of those a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words moments - an exhausted, pain-wrenched, tearful Wysinger-Mackey being helped off the floor by her teammates.
It was also something that Weatherspoon said she wouldn't forget.
"I'm glad she's mine," Weatherspoon said. "I'm glad she is here with us. She is tough, hardnosed. She is a never-give-up kind of kid, no matter what. She takes on a challenge and she takes it personally. She takes pride in being a great defender; she wants to defend the best.
"She gave everything she had. With 14 points and 15 rebounds and defending (Jaleesa Ross) for 51 minutes, you know she was exhausted. When you can walk off the floor and know you left everything out there, you have to be proud. Tarkeisha does that every night."
Junior guard Jasmine Bendolph, who fights a daily battle with Ulcerative Colitis, might have given the gutsiest effort of her career. Despite the fact she was due for the next treatment for her illness, Bendolph played a career-high 44 minutes.
At one point late in the first overtime period, Bendolph collided with a Fresno State player and had to be helped to the Tech bench - doubled over in pain. She returned and played all 10 minutes of the final two extra frames, scoring 11 of her 13 points in the final 2:40 of regulation and overtime while making play after play.
"Jasmine is Jasmine," Weatherspoon said. "She was not feeling well at all. Yet she never gave in. She was going to continue to fight. She played with such energy that you would never know she wasn't feeling well. She played with fire and emotion. She had enthusiasm. She was the playmaker we needed on the floor to win this game."
Two teams who gave every ounce of energy they had. During one dead ball timeout during the final overtime, eight of the 10 players on the floor were bent over holding onto their shorts.
It was simply one of those games that fans of the two programs will talk about for a long time. A game that pitted two teams who have gained a lot of respect for each other.
A game where players from both teams made big plays despite mental and physical exhaustion.
"As coaches you ask so much of them at that particular time," Weatherspoon said. "You know as a coach the energy that they've already given, but you have to make them dig deep and find that will to win. Our kids dug deep, and they found a way to win."
For Louisiana Tech fans, it was an instant classic.
