Lane closing out
tumultuous season
at Fresno State

RENO, Nev. » In the storybook world of college basketball in March, surging underdog Fresno State should have won yesterday's dramatic WAC tournament semifinal against Louisiana Tech.

Reality intervened, though, and the Lady Techsters from Ruston, La., are still the basketball queens of the conference for at least one more day. They outlasted the Bulldogs, 92-87, in two overtimes.

It was the most points in a women's WAC tournament game since 2001, when Hawaii beat SMU 97-88 in a semifinal. Aritta Lane was leading Aiea High School to the state championship that year. Yesterday the forward scored 22 points and posted nine rebounds and five assists (both tied for team highs) for Fresno State, which lost for the first time after six wins.

She played 47 minutes despite old knee problems and a new one for her left ankle when someone stepped on it during the game.

"It kind of hurts to lose in double overtime, but I wouldn't trade it for anything," Lane said.

Except, of course, a win.

"They've been dominating, but I think we proved a lot to our fans and people who've been watching that we can fight and play with them," she added.

The senior has started all four seasons. This was the most tumultuous, and the team could have fallen apart; coach Stacy Johnson-Klein was put on leave and then fired after an investigation found that she abused her authority, including asking players to give her prescription painkilling medication.

Since Adrian Wiggins' first game as interim coach Feb. 10, Fresno State has won seven of 10 games. At 20-10, it is a lock for the Women's NIT.

LaTech coach Kurt Budke said Wiggins deserves to have the "interim" taken off his job title.

Lane, one of the team's more outspoken critics of Johnson-Klein, agreed.

"It's not that it's more fun (playing under Wiggins). But I think everyone's heads rise a little higher. People want to play basketball again and are excited," Lane said. "Maybe there was something blocking our goals. The fact that it was taken away meant we have to live up to what we were saying. We proved to everybody we can do it. He wants us to enjoy it. We want to play hard for (Wiggins and the assistant coaches)."

Lane scored 14 points in the first half, staking Fresno State to a 40-36 lead. LaTech trailed 67-52 with 7:36 left in regulation and it looked like it would lose its first WAC tournament game after 10 wins since joining the conference in 2002.

But Erica Taylor -- who did not play until December due to the birth of her first child -- took over the game and scored 17 after the first half.

"I don't know how she did it," Budke said. "She's a fighter, like her husband."

Taylor is married to Jermain Taylor, the 22-0 middleweight boxer who won a silver medal at the 2000 Olympics and could soon get a shot at champion Bernard Hopkins.

Top-seeded LaTech (20-8) plays No. 2 Rice (23-8) in today's championship game.