The game the Trinity Valley Community College Lady Cardinals couldn't forget resulted in one they'll always remember.
Driven by a 29-point loss to Westark Community college in December, the Lady Cardinals rolled through the rest of the season unbeaten with the hope of getting another shot at the Lady Lions in the National Junior College Women's Championship Basketball Tournament.
Another shot at Westark presented itself Saturday night in the tournament's title game and the Lady Cardinals, as promised, made the most of it, rolling past the Lady Lions 104-95 for their 28th straight victory and the national championship before a standing-room-only crowd at Tyler Junior College's Wagstaff Gymnasium.
"I tell you what, this is tremendous," first-year Lady Cardinal coach Kurt Budke said just minutes after the final buzzer. "They may have beaten us in December, but we've been pointing toward this game. We knew we could beat them."
In claiming the school's first ever non-cheerleader national crown, the Lady Cardinals rewrote a portion of the national tournament's record book for scoring. TVCC became the first team to score 100 points or more in all four games and shattered the old mark of points in a four-game series (371) by Kilgore in 1991 with 413.
Budke and the Lady Cardinals, who were a 95-66 loser to Westark in the opening round of the Panola Classic, closed the season with a sparkling 35-1 record. Westark closed 32-2.
The Lady cardinals' mission to settle a score with Westark was decided in a four-minute stretch just after the midway point of the second half when they went on a 12-4 run to open up a 90-72 lead. Although the Lady Lions responded with an explosive 13-2 run over the next minute and-a-half, cutting the TVCC lead to seven, 92-85, at the 3:23 mark, the Lady Cardinals never lost control.
"It's hard to go against the second-best team in the nation and them not have a spot where they're going to have a spurt," Budke said. "We knew it was coming. We knew all we had to do was be patient, hang in there and keep our composure.
Shanlonda Enis, voted the tournament's Most Valuable Player, tossed in eight points down the stretch, including four at the free-throw line, and Carlene Mitchell, like she'd done to opponents throughout the season, passed the Lady Lions dizzy, resulting in easy buckets by Leakeasha Hicks and Enis, to enable TVCC to hold on.
But while Enis, Mitchell and Hicks had the spotlight as the relentless clock ticked away with the final minutes, it was Teresa Jones demanding much of most of the way. The Longview sophomore, who like Mitchell and Enis was an all-tournament selection, was unstoppable, either posting up down low or getting behind the Westark press for easy layups.
Jones poured in a game-high 33 points, representing her third straight game of 30-plus points. After scoring just 11 in a 108-49 opening-round win over Faulkner State, Jones lit both Moberly and Sullivan up for 32.
Westark's defensive effort was concentrated on denying Enis and Jones the ball down low on the block and preventing them from cutting to the goal. And it worked for the most part.
But the Lady Lions had no defense for Enis and her ability to either pop out for 10-15-foot jumpers or distribute the ball, usually to Jones, and Jones for her ability to hit turnaround jumpers from the baseline and beat the press down the floor for uncontested layups off perfect and patented Mitchell passes.
The Lady Lions' defensive strategy worked early on in the game, but once TVCC started attacking the Westark press, scoring opportunities became more numerous and the Lady Lions would see the lead no more. Hicks gave the Lady cardinals the lead for good at 20-18 with 10:05 left in the first half on a drive through a Westark defense concentrating more on Enis and Jones.
Hicks, who also hit a free throw after being fouled on the drive, followed with a three-pointer from deep in the right corner, igniting the Lady Cardinals on a 17-10 run over the next five minutes and resulting in a 37-28 lead.
But Kim Williams, who Budke said was the greatest player in the nation after she scored 26 points in the win over TVCC in December, Denise Jones and Jessie McVay began making hay against the Lady Cardinal defense with drives along the baseline and the TVCC lead dwindled to three, 37-34, with 4:07 remaining in the half.
Marchelle Bonner, Tarshia Bronner, Hicks and Jones all pumped in points for the Lady Cardinals before the half ended as TVCC outscored the Lady Lions 10-4 to take a 47-38 half-time lead.
Trinity Valley's first-half scoring was balanced with Hicks and Jones getting 10 each, Enis eight, Bronner nine and Bonner six.
With Jones finding running room behind Westark's full-court pressure defense, the Lady Cardinals toyed with blowing the game open in the early stages of the second half. But 6-1 Westark post Marie Scott became active inside and allowed the Lady Lions to hang around.
All that changed at the 13:33 mark when Budke sent 6-1 Canton sophomore Belinda Wright, celebrating her birthday into the game for the first time to defense Scott. In the meantime, Jones, who hit her first five shots en route to 23 second-half points, continued to fire away.
By the time Wright, who kept a hand in Scott's face and stayed in eye-to-eye contact, left the game with 7:53 to go, Scott had been held scoreless and the Lady Cardinals had breathing room at 82-68.
"Belinda might have been the factor that turned the game when were struggling a bit," Budke said. "When they started getting hot we came in and worked her butt off. I told her she was a big factor in us winning tonight."
"I'm really a defensive player, anyway," Wright said. "I do my best work on defense. I go hard because that's where you win games.
"I like to score, but defense is where I do my best work."
Jones gave the Lady Cardinals their biggest lead, 88-70, with 5:26 remaining on a layup off a Mitchell pass.
McVay brought the Lady Lions roaring back, triggering their 13-4 run with, first, a layup off a drive down the baseline, and, secondly, with another off a steal of the Lady Cardinals' ensuing inbounds pass.
The Lady Lions weren't though.
Wright was called for an intentional foul, sending Williams to the line for two free throws. After Williams hit both, the Lady Lions also got possession and converted it into a Williams's layup off a baseline drive, meaning Westark scored eight points on one trip to the offensive end.
"When they started coming back, we just stuck to our game…and it paid off," Jones said. "We just gave them more pressure and became more intense."
Enis was 4-for-4 from the line over the next minute and a-half, enabling the Lady Cardinals to extend their suddenly shaky lead to 96-85 with 2:19 to go.
Westark was then forced into a position of having to gamble on defense, either going for a steal or having to foul. Either way, they lost.
TVCC outshot Westark 38-34 from the floor and 24-19 from the line, hitting 24-of-36. TVCC was 3-for-4 from three-point range and the Lady Lions 3-for-18.
The Lady Cardinals had 25 turnovers and Westark 22, despite the Lady Cardinals applying only token full-court pressure after Mitchell picked up her second foul early in the game..
"We planned on pressuring more than we did, but once Carlene got into foul trouble it changed things.
"We feel we're as good as any half-court team in this nation man-to-man," Budke said. "So tonight we felt as though we would just concentrate on shutting them down that way.
"Yes, we gave up 95 points, but when it counted we stopped them."
That they did.
