NCAA Women’s East Regional at Bowling Green, Ky. : CS Long Beach Can’t Pass Finals, 94-80

Finally, as player after player from Cal State Long Beach fouled out in the East Regional championship game of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. women’s basketball tournament Saturday, the reality set in. The 49ers were not going to win and their vaunted offense was not going to bring them back.

Tennessee--bigger, stronger and more aggressive--frustrated Long Beach at every turn. Nothing worked for the 49ers, who saw Saturday’s game turn into a bitter reflection of the game these teams played in December. Once again, Tennessee won, 94-80.

Second-ranked Tennessee (33-2) advanced to the Final Four and will play Maryland on Friday in Tacoma, Wash. It is the Volunteers’ fourth trip in as many years. Seventh-ranked Long Beach (30-5) ended its season.

The 49ers, who trailed, 39-35, at halftime, came within one point with 16:13 to play, but 10 minutes later the Vols had a 15-point lead, 77-62. During that stretch, Long Beach didn’t score for almost six minutes.

“It seemed like every time we were about to get over the hump, they came right back at us,” Long Beach Coach Joan Bonvicini said. “We made a good run. We could get to within one, but. . . . “

Four Long Beach players fouled out as the 49ers’ frustration bubbled to the surface late in the game. Most of the gamesmanship involved Bridgette Gordon, Tennessee’s All-American forward. Gordon, a member of the 1988 Olympic team that won a gold medal, was unstoppable Saturday. She was the game’s leading scorer, with 33 points, and rebounder, with 14.

The taunting and wordplay that was evident throughout the game flared when Traci Waites, who scored 12 points, fouled out with 28 seconds to play. Gordon went to the free-throw line. Long Beach forward Cheryl Dowell was called to the bench, and on her way she pointed a finger in Gordon’s face.

The move stirred the overwhelmingly partisan crowd of 2,200 in Western Kentucky’s Diddle Arena. It also stirred Gordon. She made the first free throw and then turned, laughed and pointed to Dowell on the Long Beach bench. It’s sure to be a move that will be remembered in this rivalry.

The 49ers began the game with little offense from their senior guards--Waites and Penny Toler--who helped Long Beach become the nation’s highest-scoring women’s team. On three consecutive fast breaks either Toler or Waites missed an easy layup. They weren’t taking bad shots, but nothing would fall.

“They just couldn’t get anything,” Bonvicini said. “I think they were not assertive enough.”

Toler got her first point at 12:05 of the first half. She finished with 11 points before fouling out.

The post players partially made up for the guards’ lack of success. Dowell maneuvered inside in the first half, clearing out the bigger Vols. She made five-of-six shots in the half and led all scorers with 10 points. It may have been her surprising play that caused Tennessee to make adjustments in the second half. Tennessee’s post play turned around.

Gordon said she took it upon herself to speak to Tennessee center Sheila Frost at halftime.

“I told her, ‘Sheila, you are stinking up the gym. What are you going to do about it?’,” Gordon said.

Frost said she resolved to either get a shot or draw a foul in the second half.

The plan worked. Five of Frost’s 15 points came on free throws. In what was perhaps the game’s most astounding statistic--Tennessee made 38 of 48 free throws, while Long Beach made six of seven.

Frost, 6 feet 4 inches and 175 pounds, summed everything up: ‘It was a physical game on the inside and outside. The person who pushes and doesn’t get caught is the one who gets the most out of it.”

No Long Beach starter had fewer than two fouls in the first half, and Shameil Coleman, Angie Lee and Toler each had three. Tennessee scored 13 points from the free-throw line to Long Beach’s two.

Tennessee Coach Pat Summitt praised her team’s defense.

“We played well defensively in the first half but not on offense,” she said. “In the second half, we tightened up the post and took care of the ball on offense.”

East Regional Notes

Named to the all-East Regional tournament team were Sheila Frost and Bridgette Gordon of Tennessee, Penny Toler and Traci Waites of Long Beach and Nikita Lowry of Ohio State.