Epiphany Prince leads a depleted Chicago Sky team to a 82-70 win over Connecticut Sun – WNBA Recap
Epiphanny Prince scored 15 points as she led Chicago Sky to an 82-70 victory over Connecticut Sun and helped them put an end to their nine game losing streak.
The win was significant considering Chicago were not only playing away from home against the best team in the Eastern Conference but also had to cope up with a depleted line in the game.
Carolyn Swords started as Sylvia Fowles missed out due to personal reasons. She made the best of the opportunity, notching up a career high 14 points with six rebounds.
The performances from the reserve centre had Chicago coach Pokey Chatman very happy.
“We see (Swords) do that every day in practice, she goes against Sylvia every day, so there is no intimidation factor,'' Chatman said. ``She uses her size well and she is going to be in the right spot.''
Swin Cash also had a good game with 14 points and 6 rebounds while Courtney Vandersloot came off the bench with 6 points, 11 assists and 4 steals.
For Sun, Allison Hightower led the way with 17 points and she was provided good support by Kara Lawson and Tina Charles who scored 16 and 15 points respectively.
But, their efforts were off no use as their team defence let them down – something Lawson admitted to after the game.
“We were just not sound defensively,'' Lawson said. “We made so many defensive mistakes. Sometimes you'll have one defensive mistake on a play. We were having three or four on the same possession. We need to improve. We need to
get a lot better defensively.''
Connecticut made a great start to the game as they led 15-6 early. But a 7-0 response from Chicago neutralized their advantage and by the close of the first quarter, Chicago used a three pointer from Petrovic to make the score
18-19.
Chicago started the second quarter with a 7-3 spurt but Connecticut stayed equally competitive throughout and took a 43-39 lead into the interval. They carried the momentum into the second half as they started off with a 5-0 run.
However their lead was shaved off by the end of the quarter as Chicago completed a 13-0 run with 6.9 second remaining in the stanza to take a lead, which they never gave up for the rest of the game.
With the momentum on their side, Chicago came into the final quarter with a 6-0 run to take their advantage into double figures. Connecticut did offer a fight back late in the game but a strong 7-0 run from Chicago to close out
the contest saw them take this one by a margin of 12 points.
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