The WNBA Seattle Storm started their five-game homestand last night with a 79-70 loss to the New York Liberty at KeyArena in Seattle.
The Storm will play at home up to the WNBA All-Star game scheduled on July 22nd at KeyArena.
After defeating Dallas last Saturday to complete a three-game road trip with a 1-2 record Seattle looked to the friendly confines of the home court advantage to keep the wins coming.
But the Storm came up against a Liberty team that was seeking to end a three-game losing streak and New York got the job done with center Tina Charles leading the way.
Charles scored 29 points for the Liberty and pulled down 12 rebounds as she helped her team to keep Seattle’s offense to a 37.5 percent shooting, their worst of the season.
Storm center Breanna Stewart added her third straight double-double, her sixth of the season and 18th career, as she scored 20 points and 14 rebounds.
Seattle kept the Liberty 0-7 to start the game as the Storm went up 7-2. The Storm would lead by as many as nine points in the first half but New York fought back scoring 29 of the next 46 points to have the lead into halftime and the remainder of the game.
The Storm knew they needed to keep up with the Liberty in the rebound department and started the contest leading in this stat 17-11 but New York, who leads the league in rebounding put up a 32-19 advantage the rest of the game.
Seattle guard Sami Whitcomb once again had a good game against the Liberty as she scored 13 points in 19 minutes of play. Whitcomb also helped the Storm to close an eight point gap in the third quarter as she scored six points in 30 seconds.
It closed the gap to 52-50 but Seattle couldn’t close the deal as New York lead the rest of the way to the final buzzer.
The Liberty started the fourth quarter scoring the first six points and would lead by as many as 14 points in the second half.
Storm guard Jewell Loyd had 11 points and six rebounds with forward Crystal Langhorne adding 11 and forward Alysha Clark putting in 10 points.
Besides Charles’s double-double the Liberty’s center Kia Vaughn had season highs in points with 13 and rebounds with 11 for her first double-double of the season and guard Epiphanny Prince added 16 points to New York’s winning effort.
Seattle will look to get back into the win column as they face off with WNBA defending champions Los Angeles Sparks in the team’s annual Breast Cancer Awareness game at 6 pm on Saturday, July 8th at KeyArena.
