The Indiana Fever made history on Sunday night, defeating the Minnesota Lynx 87-78 to complete the team's first ever championship season.

Star Tamika Catchings, who had won championships in the NCAA and the Olympics, added a third championship title to her trophy case as well as the MVP award for the series. Catchings scored 25 points in the final game and averages 24.8 for the series.

"When you come into this league, your goal and dream is to win a WNBA championship," Catchings said. "Twelve years later ... it's so sweet right now."

The Fever defeated the defending champion Lynx in the series 3-1. According to ESPN.com, "Minnesota was trying to become the first team to repeat since Los Angeles in 2001 and 2002."

"It was hard being the hunted, as we all know," Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve said. "There's a reason this hasn't been done in over 10 years. I really felt like if there was a team that could do it, it was our team."

Catchings led the team with 25 points and also added four rebounds, three blocks and eight assists. SShe had help from the Fever starting lineup, with Shavonte Zellous and Briann January scoring 15 points each. Erin Phillips had 18 points and a solid eight rebounds in the winning effort.

"I think (January) set the tone," Catchings said. "All (Augustus') baskets were hard. She used up all her energy in the first quarter."

The Lynx had a much better regular season record than the Fever, but that didn't matter much one the playoffs rolled around. The Fever out played them throughout the finals, especially in the deciding fourth game.

"They played good defense," Minnesota guard Lindsay Whalen said. "They contested shots and they made it tough for us to get in the lane a little bit. I think that was the theme of the whole series. They were just tough, and give them credit for the way they played."

The Minnesota starters were held to single digit scoring apart from Maya Moore and Whalen and shot only 42 percent in the game. Moore had 16 points and four rebounds, while Whalen added 22 points and eight assists.

The difference for the Lynx came at the free throw line, where the team shot only 83 percent compared to 93 percent for the Fever.

Indiana never let the game get close in the fourth quarter, keeping the lead to at least five points for the final five minutes of the game.

"Coming into halftime, we said we have 20 minutes and we're not trying to go back to to Minnesota to close this thing out," Zellous said.

The Fever became the first Eastern conference team to win the championship since the Detroit Chock in 2008.

"They made some huge runs at us and gave it everything at us, and I'm just relieved more than anything because we deserve this," Phillips said. "We've been through so much as a team, we've lost in crucial times and we've stuck together. I'm just so proud right now."