Lady Tiger Tamers

"My shot is sometimes suspect," said the All-America Toler, who wound up with 19 points. "Every now and then I've got to put out an APB on it. But my ball handling never deserts me." In the second half, though, Toler saw her legerdemain take it on the lam, and she turned the ball over three times. Bolton scored 12 of Auburn's last 20 points, including 6 of 6 free throws, and helped her team show the feisty 49ers the door. Ruthie received words of encouragement from her sister Mae Ola, a senior forward, as she repeatedly went to the line. "Ruthie," Mae Ola said, "you know what you can do."

The on-court Boltons also got the backing of a bevy of off-court Boltons—the 20-child, 57-grandchild brood of Linwood and Leola, who all made the trek to Tacoma from McLain, Miss. Linwood, a 65-year-old Baptist preacher, missed speaking to his parishioners for the first time in 37 Easters, though he did deliver a sermon to the Lady Tigers at the hotel before the game and a few impromptu pep talks here and there. "When he talks about basketball, it's just like he's preaching," said Mae Ola. "He could be a cheerleader. It's funny, a grown man getting excited about a game. It's really special, too." Ciampi, who says he learned how to handle crowds when he recruited the Boltons, also picked up an important tip from the reverend: "Patience."

That lesson seemed to have eluded the Lady Techsters in the first half of Sunday's final. Weatherspoon, moving a few beats ahead of herself, picked up two early fouls, which forced Barmore out of his bread-and-butter man-to-man. As Auburn's margin swelled, visions of last year's embarrassment began to haunt the Tech coach. But his players didn't panic, and Lewis sensed a communal resolve at halftime. "Nobody had to lift anybody up," she said later. "Everybody was up."

And soon thereafter, Weatherspoon was down. Her palms practically scraped the floor as she greeted Bolton at half-court. "The lower she goes," said Barmore, "the more determined she gets."

Against Auburn, Weatherspoon's powers of persuasion were there for 8,448 fans and a network audience to appreciate. With three minutes and two seconds to play, she flicked a pass to the corner, where Lawson nailed a J to tie the game at 51. Forty-nine seconds later, she picked Bolton clean and set Westbrooks up for a layup to give Tech its first lead of the game. "She did a good job of roughing me up, turning me," Bolton said afterward. Orr gamely retied it on a post-up shot, then a penetrating Spoon fed Lawson again and this time, with 39 seconds left, her swish from the wing put Tech on top for keeps, 55-53. "I've dreamed of doing something big in a championship game," Lawson said. "I wanted to be the one to take it."

Louisiana Tech is loaded with just that type: otherwise polite young women who want to crack the game open at crunch time. That's how a school of 10,000 in a piney, rustic town of 21,000 has been able to hang tough in a sport now mostly dominated by mega-universities. The smaller powers of yore—Immaculata, Delta State—have faded out. But Tech has endured, and in Tacoma, it prevailed.