Kortani Brown and Antoinette Johnson each exited the Merced College locker room with an arm in a sling.
Annissa DeLeon walked out with a bag of ice on top of her head, and a number of other Lady Devils emerged walking with limps and sporting bruises from Saturday's physical Central Valley Conference contest with Fresno City College at Don Reid Court.
Throw in MC's second-half collapse and the 86-51 loss was painful in every way imaginable for Allen Huddleston's squad.
"I'm not really sure what happened," said sophomore guard Kelsey Lemasney, who had a team-high 14 points. "We played really well in the first half. We went in confident with a one-point lead.
"Coach got on us that we had to keep our focus defensively in the second half, but as soon as they scored a few baskets, we stopped playing as a team."
The state No. 6 and NorCal No. 4 Rams (8-0 CVC, 23-5) needed just 9 minutes and 30 seconds after the break to outscore their first-half effort.
Taryn Sayama served as the spark, scoring 10 of her 15 points in a 13-1 Fresno City run to open the second half.
The Lady Devils' defense had no answer for a more aggressive Ram offensive approach and the offense wilted under the Fresno press. The wheels really came off when Brown was forced to exit with a shoulder injury early in the second half.
"Kortani's kind of like the security blanket for our team," Huddleston said. "When things start to go badly, they look to her. So when she wasn't out there, we had no idea what to do.
"We talked at halftime about some of the defensive breakdowns we needed to avoid and how we had to be ready to match Fresno's intensity in the first 10 minutes of the second half.
"We didn't do it. They're a team that once they get in a rhythm, they start a feeding frenzy and can roll off a whole bunch of points real quick, and that's what happened."
Fresno City hit 12 of 20 shots in the first 10 minutes of the second half, building a 64-43 lead. MC (4-4, 10-14) shot itself in the foot with 38 turnovers and never got the lead under single digits the rest of the way.
The 35-point loss was a shocking turnaround after the Lady Devils had outplayed Fresno for most of the first half.
Lemasney led the way off of the bench, scoring nine points in the first half. The MC bench was a big part of the team's 32-31 halftime lead, accounting for 22 of its points.
Ronisha Thomas finished with nine points in the loss and Erista Battle chipped in eight.
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