Going for 4 straight

By NATHAN HATHAWAY

For the Fresno State women’s basketball team, this weekend is all about revenge and payback.

The team opens its final road trip of the season at Tulsa on Thursday .

“We just want to go in there and we just want to whoop their tail,” sophomore Jasmine Plummer said. “They came in here and whooped our tails, so that was kind of embarrassing. Hopefully we can go in there and do the same, embarrass them in front of their crowd.

“That’s a game that’s personal for us. They don’t like us, and we don’t like them.”

The Golden Hurricane came in to the Save Mart Center last month and jumped out to a 35-12 lead 13 minutes into the game. In the stretch, Tulsa outscored Fresno State 18-2 in the paint.

But Fresno State battled back and went on a 30-8 run spanning halftime and held Tulsa without a field goal for more than nine minutes to end the first half.

“That was kind of an embarrassing game,” Plummer said. “But we fought back, so we made a good game of it.”

Rice is led by sophomore forward Jillian Robbins, who leads the Western Athletic Conference in rebounding (8.8 rebounds per game) and is third in the conference in scoring (15.6 points per game) and blocked shots (2.41 per game). Robbins, the reigning WAC freshman of the year and an All-WAC selection last year, had 15 points and 15 rebounds against Fresno State when the teams played at the Save Mart Center on Jan. 22.

For Fresno State, Plummer leads the WAC in steals, averaging 2.43 per game, while also scoring 6.7 points and pulling down five rebounds per game.

Forwards Amy Parrish and Aritta Lane average 13.1 and 11.9 points, respectively. And Lane is second only to national leader Amber Jackson (San Jose State) in the conference in field goal percentage.

Lane is shooting better than 55 percent for the season.

The Golden Hurricane (14-8, 6-6 WAC) is riding a three-game losing streak, the mirror image of the Bulldogs’ (15-7, 7-6 WAC) winning streak.

But the game Fresno State forward Lane said is the most encouraging to the Bulldogs is Tulsa’s 61-53 home loss to San Jose State on Jan. 27. Fresno State beat the Spartans 79-63 in San Jose earlier this year.

“San Jose, that’s motivation to us,” Lane said. “San Jose beat them at their house, Tulsa. We beat San Jose by 16, and they did improve after we played them, but we still have a really big shot at doing just as well.”

Lane said the Bulldogs hope to carry the recent success the team has built in their past few games on the road with them.

“Our momentum is good right now,” Lane said. “Everything is running the way that we want it to. Shot selection has improved tremendously. Our goals are still the same.”

The Bulldogs will go on the road without their coach for the first time all season. Stacy Johnson-Klein, still on paid administrative leave pending a university investigation, won’t travel with the team.

“It’s our first trip without her, and we want to see if we can do it,” Plummer said. “Of course it’s in your mind. It’s going to be different. It’s not like our manager’s not coming. Our head coach is not coming. Hopefully we can just get that out of our mind and just play.

“It’s about us. It’s not about the whole situation. We’re just here to play basketball. We’re the athletes here.”

Point guard Mirenda Swearengin said this trip will be key to the Bulldogs’ ability to establish themselves as a contender heading into the WAC tournament.

“These past three games we’ve played, we’ve really played well. We’re really trying to keep it up,” Swearengin said. “It is clutch time, and we don’t need to lose anymore.

“We want to let the conference know that we’re still in it. We’re not out yet.”