by SEATTLE–On the final night of the season, the Storm rode its young second unit heavily and it came down to a last second attempt but it would tick off the rim as Seattle dropped the season finale to San Antonio 59-58 on Sunday night.
Despite the 10-24 finish to the season, there was a lot of growth and that was something Head Coach Jenny Boucek focused on.
“We’re really pleased with this team’s growth and that was our number one objective this year was to find some young players and grow together with them,” she said. “It’s really, honestly not just our young players that have grown. We’ve seen great growth in all of our players from Sue [Bird] all the way across the board, Alysha Clark, Jenna [O’Hea]. I could go down the line. We’re really pleased with that.”
The Storm was the third youngest heading into the season and relied heavily on that youth on Sunday.
Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, Angel Goodrich (Cherokee Nation), Markeisha Gatling, and Quanitra Hollingsworth all played season highs in minutes and played the bulk of the time from the second through the fourth quarters.
Seattle went into the second half with a seven-point lead but watched San Antonio chip away in the third to take a 41-40 lead.
Mosqueda-Lewis scored four straight to give Seattle a 46-43 lead going into the fourth. Only two nights after scoring a career-high 16 points, Mosqueda-Lewis topped that with 19 points on 8-for-23 from the field.
In the fourth, the Storm battled back and forth with the Stars and the game saw seven lead changes and two ties. Seattle went up by five after a rebound from Goodrich and a long jumper from Ramu Tokashiki with 4:35 left.
Goodrich finished with a season-high 12 points and set a career-high with 10 rebounds. It was her first career double-double.
“Angel did awesome,” Mosqueda-Lewis said. “She kind of forced people to respect her shot today. She took what they gave her and was more aggressive on the offensive end, which is something we need from her. It opened up a lot of other things but also, at the same time, made her individually show she can score, too.”
“Jenna mentioned it, she mentioned it to me on the bench. I was like, really?” Goodrich said. “I didn’t get it at the time and she said one more and you get a double double. I didn’t believe her, really. Career-high in rebounds? It didn’t sound right.”
San Antonio came back and took a 59-58 lead with 1:11 left but it gave the Storm one last chance to get the win. With 7.7 seconds left, Clark drove left and threw up a shot but it went off the rim, ending the game.
Crystal Langhorne, who came into the game averaging 18.3 points on 71.4 percent shooting in the first four matchups, wasted no time picking up where she left off. She scored eight points in the first quarter on 3-for-3 from the field but the Storm went into the second down by one.
In the second, it was Mosqueda-Lewis’ turn.
With Seattle up by two, she hit a jumper and then a three from the corner to give the Storm a 34-27 halftime lead. She had seven of her team-high 11 first half points in the second.
