Tina Charles shines as Connecticut Sun edge out San Antonio Silver Stars 83-79: WNBA Recap
On Friday night Connecticut Sun’s Tina Charles stepped inside the arena to open a new epoch in women basketball history. She was 4 rebounds short of the 800 career boards a milestone, and with 2 minutes and 2 seconds remaining
in the third she hauled down her 4th board of the game and became the fastest player in WNBA history to reach 800 career rebounds. She has achieved this in 71 games.
Charles provided the impetus and Sun handed over an 83-79 defeat to San Antonio Silver Stars here at Mohegan Sun Arena. Tina, besides her milestone achievement, also tallied 18 points and 8 boards. She was humbled and overwhelmed
after surpassing Yolanda Griffith (she previously held the record of scoring 800 boards in 72 games).
“It's great, but I'm just doing my job, going out there and playing hard and getting boards,'' Charles said. ``I'm a centre. That's what we're supposed to do - clean the glass.''
Connecticut had 4 players scoring in double figures, with reserve Renee Montgomery posting 23 points and 3 boards to help Sun roll onto a 3 game winning streak.
The 21-year-old guard was contended with Sun’s kicking start to the season.
“I love how we've started out the season,'' Montgomery said. ``It's going to be tight at the end (of the regular season), so the more (wins) you get in the beginning, it's great.''
Forward Asjha Jones had 16 points and Kara Lawson had 13 points in Connecticut 3rd victory of WNBA’s 16th season.
Sun were brilliant from the free throw line as they connected 90.9% from that spot while they were 46.2% from the floor. On the contrary San Antonio were 80% from the charity stripe and only 37.9% from the floor.
Danielle Adams marshalled Silver Stars with 21 points while Shameka Christon collected 14 points coming off the bench. Guard Becky Hammon netted 11 and dished out 8 treys while Danielle Robinson chipped in with 10 points in Silver
Star’s first defeat of the season.
The game started evenly as with 4:40 in hand for the first quarter to close, it was tied for the 4th time at 12 apiece. But Sun blasted their way out of the stalemate with an 11-4 spurt to claim a 23-16 lead. By the
end of 1st frame San Antonio could only reduce the gap to 23-19.
Connecticut widened the gap to 30-21 early in the 2nd but went cold afterwards, allowing Silver Stars to reduce the gap and with a 14-6 burst they trimmed down the lead to 1 point, 36-35 by the end of 1st
half.
Connecticut opened the third with an 11-5 spurt and widened the gap to 47-40 but Silver Stars came up with a 13-5 run and changed hands, 53-52 late into the frame. They couldn’t hold onto their lead and Lawson pair of deuce instigated
an 8-2 sprint for Sun. As the game entered into its last 10 minutes, Connecticut were up with 60-55 lead.
The Sun went on to punish Silver Stars in the decisive frame and with 3:15 on clock they were enjoying a double-digit, 78-65, lead. Silver Stars came up with a 14-5 run but it was too late, as the time expired they could only come
as close as 83-79.
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