October 8, 2020 Shelton Mason County Journal | ![]() |
©
Shelton Mason County Journal. All rights reserved. Upgrade to access Premium Tools
PAGE 38 (38 of 48 available) PREVIOUS NEXT Jumbo Image Save To Scrapbook Set Notifiers PDF JPG
October 8, 2020 |
|
Website © 2025. All content copyrighted. Copyright Information Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Request Content Removal | About / FAQ | Get Acrobat Reader ![]() |
Page A-38 Shelton-Mason County — Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020
Sports
iamfi-fi‘mn: ——,_,s. .. w“ m....mwt_smwn__.s;~ ,..,,. .
Mood October
Clouds float against the hills and mountains surrounding Lake Cushman on
Sunday as fall weather to arrives. Journal Justin Johnson
FAB POST
rlli‘he cool, crisp air of fall
has descended on the
Pacific Northwest, and
the rains of winter are just
weeks away.
On the eastern edge of
Florida, nearly 2,600 miles
away, a Storm is brewing.
With a three-game sweep
of the Las Vegas Aces in the
best-of-five Women’s National
Basketball Association
Finals, the Seattle Storm won
a fourth league championship Tuesday
night.
Achieving that feat, which came
courtesy of a 92-59 blowout in the deci-
sive game, put the Storm franchise in
the league’s pantheon of giants.
only two others -— the now-defunct
Houston Comets and the Minnesota
Lynx have won four WNBA titles.
Seattle was 18-4 in this year’s
coronavirus-shortened 22-game regu-
lar season, matching the Aces for the
league’s best record. Las Vegas was
the No.1 seed due to a two-game
sweep during the season, which has
By JUSTIN
JOHNSON
been played entirely at the
IMG Academy in Bradenton,
Florida.
In both of those regular
season games, the Storm
played Without veteran point
guard —— and future WNBA
Hall of Famer — Sue Bird
running the team’s offense.
The second regular-season
meeting between the Storm
and Aces on the last day also
I saw WNBA Most Valuable
Player contender Breanna Stewart sit
while resting an injured ankle for the
playoffs.
In game one of the championship
series, Stewart scored 37 points and
pulled down 15 rebounds, terrorizing
the Aces both in the paint and from the
perimeter, where the 6-foot-4 center
knocked down five 3-pointers.
Bird, who turns 40 in a few weeks,
set a WNBA Finals single-game record
with 16 assists.
In Sunday’s game two, Stewart
scored 22 points and Bird dished off
another 10 assists — part of a WNBA
single-game team record 33 helpers.
Seeing a pattern?
Seattle won both games by double
digits. In each outing, the Storm
staked out big early leads and held off
furious Las Vegas comebacks, before
settling for 13-point wins. .
In the title-winning tilt, Seattle won
by 33 points after it outscored Las Ve-
gas 49-25 in the second half.
Stewart again led the Storm in p
scoring, dropping 26 points in just 25
minutes. She finished the three-game
series with 85 points and was awarded ,
the WNBA Finals Most Valuable Play-
er award for the second time in three
years.
The Storm scored 289 points — an
average of 96.3 points — in three
games behind its high-flying pair of
University of Connecticut grads —- who
combined to win six NCAA women’s
basketball championships with the
Huskies.
Of those six, Stewart —— affection-
ately known as Stewie —won four
straight for the Huskies from 2013-16,
and averaged 21.8 points per game in
Stormdelivers Seattle a fourth WNBA title
2018 as she helped lead Seattle to the
title that season. V
She missed the Storm’s 2019 cam-
paign alter she tore her Achilles ten-
don in the EuroLeague women’s final
playing for Dynamo Kursk.
Following the injury, Stewie vowed
she’d be back.
She made good on that promise.
With the championship in hand, the
Storm join the Seattle Sounders of Ma-
jor League Soccer —— who won a second
MLS Cup at CenturyLink Field last
December — at the pinnacle of their
respective sports.
And while the Seattle Mariners
turned in a forgettable 2020 season,
the Seattle Seahawks are 4-0 with an
offense that has looked unstoppable
and quarterback Russell Wilson’s
name is firmly in the mix of contend-
ers for the National Football League’s
Most Valuable Player.
It’s definitely good to be green.
I Justin Johnson is the Editor of the
Shelton-Mason County Journal. He can
be reached at justin@masoncounty.com.
%