Irish in Hoosier heaven.(Chicago Tribune)

ST. LOUIS_It was almost inevitable that Ruth Riley would think of her favorite childhood movie "Hoosiers" Sunday night before she sank the two free throws that beat Purdue 68-66 and won the NCAA championship for Notre Dame.

"What could be more fitting in the finals between two schools from Indiana, to have it depend on two free throws at the end as it did when Jimmy Chitwood sank them in the movie," said Riley, the 6-foot-5-inch All-American who was voted most valuable player of the Final Four.

Riley took her game-winning foul shots with 5.8 seconds to play. She hit iron on both shots, but she wasn't after style points. Both went down, breaking a 66-66 tie before a crowd of 20,551.

"I wasn't nervous," Riley said. "I was it that situation before at Connecticut. I didn't do so well, so I've taken a lot of free throws since that time."

Said senior teammate Kelley Siemon: "Ruth has come through huge for us in clutch situations. I was sure those shots would go down. I knew they would."

Purdue had one last chance. Coach Kristy Curry set up a play that would put the ball in the hands of All-American Katie Douglas. Douglas got the ball, took a 17-footer , watched it bang off the rim and then crumbled to her knees as the game and her college career ended.

"We didn't run the play as well as we wanted to," Douglas said. "Didn't execute. Credit Notre Dame. They played good defense. Still, I had a pretty good look at the basket. It just didn't go down."