The only thing women's basketball head coach Tracy Roller could do after last night's 97-94 overtime victory over Miami University was sit back with a little smirk and take a deep breath of fresh air.
The Cardinals overcame a 16-point deficit with eight minutes remaining behind the roar of more than 3,000 fans to take Ball State's main rival in the Mid-American Conference to the wire and remain undefeated at home this year.
To a deafening roar, junior Johna Goff hit a three-point shot with less than a minute on the clock to pull the game within two points, then fed the ball to senior Tamara Bowie on the ensuing possession to send the game into overtime.
"We dream of playing in front of this many people every day," Goff said. "We fed off their energy. We were so tired out there that we couldn't even talk to each other. But the crowd is cheering, and that helps us."
The MAC East leading Redhawks relied heavily on their reigning MAC Player of the Year, senior Heather Cusick, who led the game with 28 points and six three-point baskets.
Goff and freshman Dana Collins struggled the entire game to contain the hot shooting of Cusick as Roller tried several defensive sets in a vain attempt of stopping her scoring. In the end, the only thing that cooled her off was her into early foul trouble, forcing Cusick to watch much of the game from the sidelines.
"We did everything we had in our bag," Roller said. "We went over screen, we went under screens, we hedged, we flat screened, we trapped. We tried it all. She's just that great of a player."
As the Cardinals (13-5 overall, 7-1 MAC) continued to struggle early in the game, a late spurt by the team - with Cusick on the bench - gave Ball State a seven-point lead at halftime.
"I tried everything I could to get them going," Roller said. "I used all my timeouts, I used people off the bench, I took off my coat, I did it all. But in the end it was the crowd that got us back into it."
Even as Ball State seemingly controlled the momentum and the crowd actually came to life, the Redhawks (10-9, 5-3) were once again carried on the shoulders of Cusick as she repeatedly defied the odds with her tough shots through Ball State's tight defensive sets designed to stop her.
But again foul trouble kept her on the bench and the Cardinals eventually started to chip away at the lead. The team fought through adversity as Collins and freshman Erica Cotton both stepped up to lead the team down the stretch, coming up with big defensive stops while Goff hit key 3-pointers on the other end.
"This game really says a lot about us as a team," Collins said. "We really came together at the end and showed a lot of heart and played probably the best defense we've played all year."
Up by two points with 45 seconds remaining, Miami once again went to Cusick to put the game away, but a strong defensive effort by Bowie drew an offensive foul by Cusick - her fifth foul.
Cusick could only sit powerless as Bowie went down and hit the tying shot and led her team into overtime.
In the crucial five-minute overtime, it was Cotton who again came up with the big defensive plays that sparked the team, just as it had the entire game.
"I went down the bench when Dana was shooting her free throws that she won us the game. If she never would have gotten us back in it, we wouldn't have had a chance."
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