Final score: Storm 36 – Rockers 58 (L) (4-3)

Attendance | 3821

Anthem Xtra Notes | None

Anthem High Note | A little wobbly

Anthem Style | Choir harmony

Fan Noise | Played big

Signs | Getting better

Fan Psyche | Bad flashback

Halftime | Storm Quest Part 2 – Can anyone hit a bucket?

Why can’t all of our games be record breakers? Wouldn’t that be nice? Each game, someone gets a career high in assists or steals or something. Each game, someone busts out and takes over, dominating the opposition. And on one magical night, someone – Lauren? Semeka? Simone? – scores a double double.

That would be keen.

Tonight is not a keen night. Although it is a record-setting night, just in the wrong direction. Fewest points scored by a Storm team. Ouch.

Tonight is the Hyde to Tuesday night’s Jeckyll. Tuesday was all about poise, control, patience and execution. Tonight is an unfortunate time warp to last year. The Storm score only 9 points in the second half. That’s right. 9 points. At the end of the game, we are trying to remember how long it has been since the Storm last scored. Was it 8 minutes ago? 10? Agonizing.

The game starts well. The crowd is small (under 4,000 again – damn!), but noisy. We’re 4-2 and have plenty to be noisy about. The Storm are on a win streak, another first (yeah, so it’s a 2 game streak, you got something to say about that?) People are accepting and getting into the whole standing until the first basket idea. The team is fidgety with energy during the anthem while the Rockers are like stone fixtures. There is a good vibe in the air. Everyone senses that even though Cleveland is a good team, we have a legitimate chance to win this game.

As they have in past home games, the Storm jump out to a small lead. The Rockers control the pace though and keep it within 3 or 4 points. It’s a defensive battle and low scoring, 27-27 at the half. There is a potentially bad sign developing – the Rockers are seriously outrebounding the Storm. Nothing to worry about yet, right?

Then comes the first half of the second half. If the Storm have a 15+ point lead, they seem to be able to weather this unfortunately typical lull. Not tonight. The Rockers take over every aspect of the game and slowly build a commanding lead. Even the normal bench jump start from Jamie or now Michelle (3M – Michelle Marie Marciniak) can’t dent the Rockers control. No rebounds. Good Storm defense leads to steals and turnovers but without scoring results. And then the backbreaker – a bobbled rebound under the Storm basket that is recovered by a Rocker player WHO CLEARLY STEPS OUT OF BOUNDS leads to a Rockers fast break and a Vicki Hall (#42, Rockers) 3-pointer. As soon as she gets the pass, we know that it’s going in. It sucks the wind out of the Storm and out of us.

We can only hope that having gotten this nastiness behind them, the Storm will be back in their top form for Saturday and the Sparks. Talking about the Sparks, while we are walking back to our car after the game, we are talking to some other fans about the hair extension pulling incident at the Olympics. You remember – Lauren pulled out Lisa Leslie’s hair extensions during the gold medal game. Well, this fan (didn’t get her name) jokingly said we should wave hair extensions at the game.

We think this is a great idea.

Don’t misunderstand. Stormfans.org is all about fair play and keeping things positive, but this is too good to pass up. We suggest that everyone bring “hair extensions” to the game to twirl around anytime Lisa Leslie is introduced, shoots a free-throw, or touches the ball. Angie is going to make a batch of them using black yarn, cutting a few strands into 1 to 1.5 foot long lengths and then tying off one end of the bunch. We will share as many as we can. It would be great to see a wave of twirling “hair” every time Lisa steps on the court.

See you Saturday.

Notes:

The group who sang the anthem – YES! Very nice.

Semeka went down with a painful looking hand injury, but got up and continued to play. On the replay, it looked like she hyperextended and twisted her right hand. That had to effect her ability to shoot. We hope it wasn’t serious (it looked bad).

Michelle dove after a ball and hit the floor so hard she spit out her mouth guard. Cool.

The timeout entertainments included the dreaded Starbucks matching game (with similar results as the last time), and the new fan favorite – Bungie Basketball. We love Bungie Basketball. Every timeout should be Bungie Basketball and we would love it. Bring back Bungie Basketball.