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.
|  | | Jackie Stiles, who scored 32 points as Southwest Missouri State advanced to the Final Four, was named the West Regional's most outstanding player. |
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 on 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 (7 p.m. ET, ESPN) in St. Louis, just a 3½-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 4½ 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-for-15 on 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 to 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.
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ALSO SEE
Women's College Basketball Scoreboard
Washington Clubhouse
SW Missouri State Clubhouse
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