LOS ANGELES – In a wild turn of events, the Indiana Fever used a season-high 10 3-point field goals to fuel their biggest comeback of the season, upending Los Angeles 79-68 at Staples Center.

It marked only the third Indiana road win over L.A. in 16 seasons, but it was the Fever’s third straight road win to match a franchise record – for the 11th time in club history and the second time this season. Indiana won its fourth straight game overall, capturing its seventh victory in eight games and its 12th in the past 15 after beginning the season 3-6 under first-year coach Stephanie White.

PHOTO GALLERY: Fever 79, Sparks 68 »»

“A ton of credit goes to our players,” said White whose club has helped position her as a leading candidate as the league’s coach of the year. “They toughed it out. They scratched, they clawed. And whenever you have a player like Tamika Catchings, everybody else rallies and plays that way with her. That’s just who she is.”

Catchings, who paced the Fever with 20 points, staged a gutty head-to-head individual matchup with another former University of Tennessee star, Candace Parker. In the end, Catchings got more from her Fever teammates.

“Everybody played their role great,” said Marissa Coleman who played with the Sparks for two seasons before signing a free agent deal with Indiana prior to the 2014 campaign. Coleman scored 14 points with three 3-pointers and a pair of steals. She added: “At the half, we knew we were playing too fast on defense and we had too many turnovers. When we play together on both ends of the floor, we’re a hard team to beat.”

The Fever were hard to beat, indeed.

Undeterred by its 14-point deficit, Indiana raced back into the game by outscoring L.A. 24-6 in the third. The Fever got six points from Coleman and five from Catchings in the period, while limiting the Sparks to 2-of-10 shooting in the quarter and taking advantage of nine L.A. turnovers.

White’s locker room message at halftime? “I challenged them. I challenged them to be the team they can be,” she said.

Shavonte Zellous erased the deficit with a 3-pointer for a 48-48 tie score with 1:19 in the period and, until Candace Parker’s free throws with 1:03 left in the third, Los Angeles was on pace to match the lowest-scoring third quarter (4 points) in WNBA history.

A Coleman layup tied it against at 50, and her four-point play with 0.8 seconds left in the quarter may have been the most dramatic play of the game. The first-time All-Star buried a deep, fallaway 3-pointer that fell through the net after the buzzer sounded and after the Sparks’ Marianna Tolo was whistled for a foul. Officials reviewed the last-second shot and ruled it good with time still left on the clock. Coleman sank the subsequent free throw to give Indiana a 4-point lead after entering the period down 44-30.

Coleman’s big plays were matched only by the dual between former Volunteers, Catchings and Parker.

From the game’s opening sequence when Catchings stripped Parker to produce the game’s first basket, to the decisive fourth quarter in which big play after big play featured one of the two former Tennessee forwards, the Catchings-Parker matchup was a heavyweight subplot.

In the fourth quarter alone, the Lady Vols duo combined to shoot 6-of-10 from the floor, 11-of-12 at the line with seven rebounds and a pair of steals. Parker scored 12 of her 25 in the quarter, Catchings netted 11 of her 20.

Parker, in her eighth WNBA season compared to Catchings’ 15, posted Catchings-esque numbers while approaching a quadruple-double. She finished with 10 rebounds, six assists and a Sparks-record eight steals.

Catchings, the WNBA’s No. 2 career scorer and rebounder and its all-time leader in steals and free throws, finished with a stat line including seven rebounds, three assists and two steals. All seven of her free throws came in the fourth quarter.

“Down the stretch, teams rely on certain things. For me, I was able to attack,” said the former MVP and 10-time All-Star Catchings. “I knew where we were on the scoreboard and I wanted to be aggressive.”

Oddly, the matchup of U.S. Olympic teammates and UT alums almost didn’t happen. In the Fever’s morning shooting practice, Catchings was tagged with guarding Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike whose 16.1 points per game rank fourth in the league, drawing Catchings to joke that she wanted to guard Parker.

Shortly before tipoff though, it was learned that Ogwumike would sit due to concussion symptoms. Catchings got her wish and spectators witnessed one of the best back-and-forth individual matchups the WNBA could offer.

Parker, though, also contributed seven turnovers, five in the second half, in what was a key stat that defined the game’s tale of two halves. After 10 Indiana miscues led to 17 Sparks points in the first half, 13 L.A. turnovers produced 15 points for the comeback-minded Fever in the second half.

Los Angeles knotted the score at 54 on Temeka Johnson’s jump shot 30 seconds into the final quarter, and the Sparks led 58-57 on a layup by Tolo. The Fever captured the lead for good, however, on Briann January’s 17-foot jumper with 7:30 to play to spark a 6-0 run and give Indiana what was then its biggest lead.

Parker cut the lead to 3 on a driving layup and free throw that was matched by a nearly identical three-point effort by Catchings. A turnaround jumper by Parker made it 66-63, but the Sparks never got closer as Indiana controlled the glass with 11 of the game’s last 13 rebounds while pulling away.

Indiana outrebounded the Sparks 14-8 in the fourth quarter and used seven second-chance points to seal the second win in three days during its West Coast road trip. Overall, the Fever finished with 19 offensive rebounds, the second-most in franchise history.

Kizer’s offensive rebound with 3:44 remaining led to a layup by Shenise Johnson. After another Parker free throw, a Catchings layup staked Indiana to a six-point margin and spurred an end-of-game rally in which the Fever outgunned the Sparks 11-4 in the last three minutes.

The final result for Indiana was a second-half turnaround of 25 points, 49-24.

January matched a season-high with 14 points for a balanced Fever lineup in which all 10 players reached the scoring column. Kizer scored five points while adding a career-high 11 boards. Johnson had nine points and eight caroms.

Los Angeles got 12 points from Ana Dabovic, all in the first half, and Jantel Lavender had 10. L.A. shot 45 percent overall compared to just 38 percent for the Fever, but the difference came beyond the 3-point stripe where Indiana’s 10-of-19 shooting dominated the Sparks’ 1-of-13.

The WNBA’s best defensive unit behind the arc (31 percent), Indiana limited Phoenix and Los Angeles to 1-of-26 shooting its past two games combined.

Before halftime, the Sparks made use of 11 straight second quarter points to seize control. L.A. opened a 29-22 lead with 7:20 left in the second. Indiana pulled within three, but five different Sparks players put together the 11-0 streak that kept Indiana scoreless for nearly five minutes.

Los Angeles enjoyed 53 percent shooting and took advantage of Fever mistakes in the first half. Indiana stayed in the game with its long-distance prowess, but shot just 3-of-11 from the floor in the second period as L.A. outscored the visitors 23-10.

Indiana concludes a four-game road swing at Seattle on Friday.