Mitchell who was 7-for-12 from the field, was 4-for-5 from the three-point range, had two of the sweetest shots in the game hitting a back to the basket lay-up to go along with an aggressive lay-up with four Indiana Fever players surrounding her. The point-guard also dished out five assist in the game.

“We just brought a lot of energy, especially defensively because we knew they are a great team. They have a lot of great players so our good defense was able to translate our offense,” Mitchell said of her team’s performance. “Our whole team played great today; the whole team was able to contribute with an assist, a steal or a rebound so it was great for the confidence of each and every one of our players.”

Along with Mitchell three other players were in double-digit scoring including Center Taj McWilliams-Franklin who had double-double with 14 points and 10 boards. Guard Cappie Pondexter who was named to the WNBA Eastern Conference Player of the Week for two weeks in a row, scored 13 points to go along with six assists.  Forward Nicole Powell had 10 points for New York to go along with two very big three-point buckets. Rounding out the scoring for the Liberty was Guard Essence Carson who had eight points, while Janel McCarville and Plenette Pierson both had six points each.

“We are just going one game at a time and that is the beauty of this team,” head coach Anne Donovan said after the game. “They understand that you have to go one game at a time. I was really pleased with the mentality of our group. Playing a great team like Indiana and playing well….that’s the most important thing for us.”

Leading the way for the Fever was Forward Tamika Catchings who was on fire the first half of play. Catchings, who is making her bid for MVP, scored 15 points from behind 5-for-5 shooting from the field while also shooting 3-for-3 from the three-point arc. The forward was then kept off the board due to great defense by New York.

“The third quarter was our biggest difference,” Catchings said after the game. “The Liberty was able to come out with more intensity after halftime and we just weren’t able to match that. We have to regroup. We still have two more games. Go to San Antonio from here then we have Minnesota at home. It’s a tight race.”

Essence Carson who again provided a positive spark including a fourth quarter steal and lay-up around the two minute mark, had this to say of the game. “We really defended well tonight they shot just under 40 percent, and we really cleaned up on the rebounds. So that was the main key to our victory tonight.”

Center Taj McWilliams-Franklin who provided New York with some of the biggest rebounds of the game, also with hit a thrilling last second shot in the fourth quarter of play. The center had this to say of the victory, “It was a great team victory we had some goals that we set out to do against the Fever, as well as the playoffs. Right now teams are jockeying for a spot in the playoffs. Today was a game for us as a team that everything fell together.”  McWilliams-Franklin would continue to say, “As our mental focus strengthens we just keep getting better and better.”

Also having a strong game for New York was forward Janel McCarville, giving the Liberty a strong inside post presence to go along with some nice passing and key jumpers throughout. McCarville had this to say of the win, “It was huge to have been able to get the win tonight. To have been able to keep them to six points in the second quarter was great and shows what our team is all about.”  She continued by saying, “Everyone stepped up and so many people on the team are unselfish enough  to give up any shot for one that is open and it has paid off for us.”

New York has two more regular season games at Madison Square Garden before the start of post season play. The team will wrap up their three-game home-stand at the Mecca on Thursday as they take on the Tulsa Shock with tip-off at 7:30 p.m. The schedule includes one last road game on Friday against Washington before the home finale against Connecticut at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday.

New York now moves on up the standings as they are now tied for third place in the East as the playoff push continues. Tonight’s win was sweet for Liberty in more ways than one. In terms of the stats four players reached double digit scoring, while the entire team was able to play in tonight’s game. New York was 69.2% shooting from the three-point line as two players displayed some fine shooting from beyond the arc. Those two players were guard Cappie Pondexter who led with 23 points and Leilani Mitchell who had 15 points.

To go beyond the stats from tonight’s game; the Liberty along with the rest of the WNBA honored survivors of Breast Cancer, as before today’s game the Liberty gave pink basketballs to select survivors.  The whole Garden was a shade of Pink to celebrate and honor those survivors. For starting point guard Leilani Mitchell, she was one of the many players who were affected by the disease as she lost her mother last year to breast cancer.

“I played for her today,” Mitchell said after the game. “I was really thinking of her throughout the game.”  The thoughts of her Mom inspired her shooting 4-of-6 from the three- point range, to along with six assists.

Head Coach Anne Donovan had this to say of her point guard, “Leilani came back and Lei was Lei. She is one of the best three-point shooters in the game and we have a ton of confidence in her. So when she is aggressive like she was, it frees everyone else up.”

“You can tell that Lei was really emotional out there today,” Guard Cappie Pondexter said after the game. “It is a really tough thing to go through, but she did a great job for us tonight. The guard earned Eastern Conference Player of the Week for the second consecutive week. Pondexter holds the Liberty record for most Player of the Week honors in what is still a young 2010 season. The only other player to nab two was Janel McCarville, who accomplished the feat in 2008.

“It is our defensive intensity,” Pondexter said of the win. “We did a great job of stopping key players like Crystal Langhorne, Katie Smith and Lindsey Harding.” Pondexter also shot 4-of-6 from the three-point range, while also dishing out six assist.

The Mystics who had complete control of the game in the first quarter of play lost total control. As New York cut into and eventually got a well earned victory in the last three quarters of play. New York’s defense attributed to five steals tonight along with a number of shot clock violations to help in the win.

“The key to good defense and passing is it all about giving and trust,” Center Taj McWilliams-Franklin said after the game. “Our defense is contingent on trusting each other. We know when someone is going to be there, and when they are not saying something. That kind of trust only comes with playing with each other.”

On the shot clock violations the center said, “It feels great, it is always like hey if you can do it once let us do it again, you almost get spoiled. It feels good but you also need to do something on the offensive end of the court.”

Taj looking more like the Tasmanian devil cartoon, as the center recorded 12 points, four rebounds four assist and one steal. The center showed some aggressive play in the inside post, while also having some sweet spin shots during the course of the basketball game. The heart and hustle of the center was noticed at the 2:22 mark in the third quarter when Coach Donovan took the center out for a breather. A good majority of the crowd in the Garden stood on their feet to applaud the effort of the center in the game.

“I love it- I love playing- I love competing,” the center said. “There is that feeling when you play sports that you can’t get anywhere else. You want people to be glad that they spend their money to come out to see you.” She would continue to say, “You want to give everything you have out on the court and that is something over the years I have tried to do.

Also giving her all was forward Planate Pierson, who had one of the sweetest shots in the game tonight. Pierson who drove in for a lay-up had the ball spin once around the net before going in. On the night as a whole Pierson had this to say, “It is really inspiring to have been part of the pre-game ceremony with the breast cancer survivors. They are a positive influence for cancer survivors.” Pierson would tell this story as well, “They all said thank you to us when we handed them the pink basketballs, and we were all like thank you for being here today.”

New York will go on to face the fourth-seeded team in the Western Conference, the Minnesota Lynx. The two teams will play on Sunday, August, 8 at 7:00 p.m. On Friday the Liberty will be back to Eastern Conference play as they face the Atlanta Dream, before returning back home on Saturday, August 14 to face the defending WNBA champions Phoenix Mercury with the MSG telecasted game to tip-off at 7:30 p.m.

“We can continue to climb and take everything one game at a time,” Leilani Mitchell said of the playoff push. “We just need to play hard and bring energy like we did most of the game tonight and we will be alright.”

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Charity Note: On Saturday August 14 prior to the 7:30 p.m. game the New York Liberty along with the Garden of Dreams Foundation is set to host annual school supply drive. The first 500 fans who bring unused supplies such as pencils, notebooks, crayons will receive a special commemorative Liberty item. Collection bins will be set up in the mall area as fans enter The Garden.

“These series with the Liberty and the Fever is becoming a good rivalry for the league and for the eastern conference,” forward Ebony Hoffman said after the game. “I really think we always have good games against each other, it always comes down to the wire. We have had several overtime games already, and it always goes down to the wire every year. Every year it is a great game and we come in ready to play and ready to fight it out.”

Forward Tamika Catchings had a double-double and was one of the key offensive threats countering every New York scoring threat, as she tallied 22 points and 10 rebounds to go along with seven assists. Nine of Catchings points came in the overtime frame for the Fever. Guard Katie Douglas followed with 21 points with four rebounds and four assists. Hoffman was a strong presence for Indiana all evening long cashing in on 15 points and grabbing four rebounds.

“It was a huge win for us today, “Catching said after the game. “When we went into overtime I really did not want us to lose this game. This is the time I have to step-up and help the team win the game. Everyone hit their shots, the defense really stepped up and it was a great overall performance.”

New York, whose three-game winning streak was snapped today, was led by guard Cappie Pondexter who established a career-high 40 points, while also dishing out seven assist and grabbing six rebounds. Guard Leilani Mitchell scored 15 points and forward Janel McCarville added 12 to lead the Liberty offensively.

“To me it’s not about the points, it’s about getting wins,” Pondexter said after the game. “It stinks because we’re definitely in the playoff race, we are trying to get a spot in the playoffs in the east and we let this one get by us today and it was disappointing. But we need to let it go and we need to move on.”

The combination of missed buckets and some key Indiana defensive plays led to the Liberty loss today.  As New York was 31-77 from the field in shooting today, the team shot 14-33 from the field in the fourth quarter which could have helped to propel them to the victory.

“They made some though shots down the stretch,” Mitchell said of the game. “They played some great defense and put a lot of pressure on us. They did some different things with their defense that kind of threw us off a little that we don’t really see too often.”

Indiana meanwhile had solid shooting all evening long as Catchings was on fire in the fourth quarter. Starting with a key defensive rebound at the 7:20 mark of the fourth quarter, she would hit a two point bucket at the 6:19 mark to give the Fever the 62-60 lead.  An offensive rebound which was followed by a jumper in the paint by forward Janelle McCarville made the score 62-62 at the 5:22 mark.

At the 5:02 mark the Fever struck back with a good jumper by forward Jessica Moore which gave them the 64-62 lead. New York answered right back in a game that featured nine lead changes with a driving lay-up by Cappie Pondexter at the 4:52 mark, which tied the two teams up 64-64. Catchings would break that tie with a driving lay-up at the 4:27 mark to only have that lead cut again by New York and a jumper by McCarville making it 66-66.

Leilani Mitchell would give the Liberty the three point lead with a beautiful shot on the outside arc at the 3:14 mark, the Liberty would add on to their lead as Pondexter cashed in on a fade away jump shot making it 71-68 at the 2:25 mark. A Pondexter jump shot at the 1:05 mark made the score 73-70, but Catchings would respond with a huge three-pointer with 50 seconds left to tie the two teams up. In the game tonight the Fever and the Liberty combined for 13 ties as the crowd of 9,508 tried to will the Liberty to the victory.

Both Pondexter and Catchings had last minute shots in that quarter to seal the deal and get the victory, but neither player was able to cash in as the two teams went into overtime. Catchings would however start overtime with the first five points for Indiana to give them the 78-75 lead. Katie Douglas would drain a jump shot at the 3:34 mark to give the Fever the 80-75 lead. Free-throws and a rebound for Catchings would eventually seal the deal and get the Fever the hard earned victory along with first place in the East Coast conference.

“The east is so tough and we have two teams like New York and Chicago to move up the ladder and you can see why it is so tough to move up the ladder,” Fever head coach Lin Dunn said after the game. “It was a hard fought game against a very good team today.”

The Liberty will try to claw their way back up the standings will have a very tough road game on Tuesday. They do so against the fourth-seeded Connecticut Sun, the game which will be televised on the ESPN 2 channel is slated to tip-off at 8:00 p.m.
“We definitely need to fight harder and try to close out the game against Connecticut.” Pondexter said. “There is still room for us to make the playoffs we just have to close-out games when we have the opportunity.”

The closeness of the game was made apparent immediately. Mini-spurts by each team earned the largest advantage each achieved in the first half. Five unanswered points by the Rams gave Fordham a 16-11 lead at 13:25 of the first half. Late in the half, six straight points by the visitors earned Charlotte a 28-24 advantage with 3:02 left in the half. To the joy of the hopeful fans in the gym, Fordham led 30-29 at the half.

Charlotte began the second half with three straight baskets to move ahead by a score of 35-30. Chris Gaston then put on a one-man show. The Fordham frosh scored the next 12 points to give the Rams a 42-35 lead with 14:58 remaining in the game. Fordham coach Jared Grasso said of the young man’s effort, “He’s the best freshman in the league. Today, he was the best player in the league.  He put the team on his back.” Two layups by Fordham’s Jacob Green gave Fordham its game high lead of 10 points, 59-49, with 6:59 left. The lead was reversed with an 18 point contribution by Derrio Green of Charlotte during the final five minutes. Green scored 22 of his team high of 24 in the second half. Grasso praised the achievement,

“Derrio Green was fantastic. Hats off to him! He made some great shots. That’s what great players do.” Fordham’s Chris Gaston accomplished his 13^th double-double of the season. He scored 32 points and grabbed 12 boards. He also led the Rams with six assists. He is the favorite to earn the A-10 Rookie of the Year award at the conclusion of the season.

Grasso, youngest head coach in NCAA Division I, was pleased by the progress of his freshman dominated squad, “It was one of those games where we had them on the ropes. This team grew up today. This team, when we add some pieces, will be very good. I’m happy with where we are. We’re moving in the right direction.” The Rams return home on Saturday, February 13^th for a 1 PM matinee with George Washington.