ALBUQUERQUE — With the season on the line in the final minute of one of the most thrilling, intense and improbable come-from-behind victories of the 2010 Girls State Basketball Championships, there was no time for jokes.

Unless you're Lakeshia Padilla.

With around 8,000 screaming fans on the edge of their seats and eyes transfixed on The Pit floor, the imposing 6-foot-1 post presence of the second-seeded Santa Fe Indian School Lady Braves walked up to junior point guard Jenine Coriz and whispered something in her ear before a critical free throw with 58 seconds remaining in a Class AAA semifinal with No. 6 Lovington.

"I just told her to call 1-800-Everytime," Padilla said. "Then she'll make them every time."

Jenine Coriz, who like younger sister Justina Coriz was carried off the court in the third quarter with a severe ankle sprain, began cracking up before sinking the free throw and pulling the Lady Braves within two.

Fourteen seconds later, Justina Coriz sank her second 3-pointer in the final 1:42 of the game to give SFIS a 59-58 lead with 44 seconds left. The first lead of the game for the Lady Braves also erased what had been a 15-point Lovington lead with 2:15 remaining in the third quarter.

The Lady Braves didn't squander their good fortune, holding on in the closing moments for a 62-59 win and a date in today's championship game with District 2AAA rival and No. 4 West Las Vegas at 6 p.m.

"I never had a doubt," SFIS head coach Cindy Roybal said. "I'm serious."

Really, coach?

Not even when Lovington jumped out to a 9-0 lead?

Not even when Padilla, who picked up two fouls in the first 1:05 of the game, was on the bench with four fouls for much of the second half?

Not even when the Coriz sisters both were carried off the floor at separate times in the third quarter with ankle injuries?

Not even when Lovington sophomore sensation Mystica Perez, who scored 33 points and was 17 of 21 from the free-throw line in the game, rattled off 12-straight points capped by an open layup with 2:15 left in the quarter to put the Wildcats up 37-22?

Not even when a pair of Perez free throws put Lovington ahead 57-51 with 1:18 to go in the 4th?

"I'm serious, I never had a doubt," Roybal said.

Jenine Coriz had doubts about the outcome, but not about her team's effort.

"There was doubt in my mind," she said. "But I knew we weren't going to go down without a fight."

And they didn't.

The Lady Braves (22-6), again wearing the memorial T-shirts of Deshauna and Del Lynn Peshlakai, the Newcomb sisters killed by a suspected drunken driver after a state tournament game last week at SFIS, said they felt they had some help from all the support in The Pit.

Lovington head coach Rick Black didn't disagree.

"I think that crowd really carried them, especially down the stretch of that game," Black said.

The play of Perez, who scored 35 points in a Tuesday quarterfinal upset over No. 3 Pojoaque Valley, was too much for the Lady Braves, prompting Roybal to turn to her bench in the third quarter and ask, "Does anyone want to play defense on that girl?"

While the answer seemed to be "no," SFIS caught a break when Perez fouled out with a minute to play.

It was the only thing that stopped Perez from scoring in a game both coaches said the officials called extremely tight.

"We went to a spread on offense in the second quarter, not because we were stalling, but to protect all our players with fouls," said Black. "The way it was called, and we have to adjust to the way the game is being called, but the way it was called really took us out of the uptempo style we like to play."

Lovington (25-6) shot 19 more free throws than SFIS, hitting 32 of 47 from the line while the Lady Braves were 16 of 28.

"If I wanted a free throw contest, I could have called the Knights of Columbus," Roybal said.

Instead, the contest Roybal and the Lady Braves get is the one Roybal has been talking about since the fall when the season began.

"I knew since the first day of practice it would be us and West (Las Vegas) in the championship game," Roybal said.

The two teams split the regular season series and West Las Vegas, which beat St. Michael's 47-46 in overtime in Thursday's other semifinal, downed SFIS in the District 2AAA Tournament championship game.

Roybal, who once led the New Mexico Highlands women's team to a win over the Lobos on The Pit floor, said Thursday's win equaled that triumph.

"This gets us in a championship game, it's right there with (the Highlands win)," Roybal said.

One more win on The Pit floor today just might top them all.

Contact Geoff Grammer at 986-3060 or ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at grammerschoolblog.com.