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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
October 8, 2020     Shelton Mason County Journal
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October 8, 2020
 
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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. %