Final score: Storm 71– Monarchs 77 (L) (2-2)

Attendance | 682

Anthem Xtra Notes | Missed it

Anthem High Note | Missed it

Anthem Style | Missed it

Fan Noise | About as loud as 682 people can get

Signs | Zero

Fan Psyche | Noooooo!!!!! No injuries!!!!

Halftime | None to speak of, but there was bungie ball!

It's a good thing that they are the Seattle Storm and not the Tacoma Storm. Believe me, we are dedicated fans, but there is no way we would do that drive two or three nights a week. We have a whole new appreciation for those of you who do drive from outside of Seattle, and those few of you that come up from Portland each game are just downright nuts.

Angie and I got to the game about 5 minutes after the opening tip. I actually left Microsoft (where I was doing a freelance project) at 3:30, picked up Angie from work at 5:00 and we arrived at PLU at 7:05. After driving for three and a half hours, I was tired, hungry and ready to unleash some pent-up road rage on Sacramento.

Just after we find some seats, the announcer introduced Edna Campbell who has travelled up to Seattle with the Monarchs. You can't tell it in the photo, but she looked great and was very active on the bench cheerleading her team and talking to some of the younger players during the game. Even though she wasn't playing, she was still taking a veteran leadership role with the rest of her team. We hope she does make it back to the active roster this season.

The stadium, well, auditorium, well, gym was straight out of the seventies. With the mustard, rust and brown color scheme, I expected to see deep shag carpet in the hallways. And, they also only had pepperoni sticks and popcorn for concessions. Okay, enough about that.

I swear that the refs use the preseason games like the coaches do - they try out just about everything to see what works. These three chuckleheads were blowing their whistles so much I thought they were using them to breathe through. Lauren racked up the fouls and ended up fouling out - of a preseason game mind you. You don't foul out of a preaseson game. Dumbass refs.

Michelle Marciniak was DNP the whole game even though she was suited up. The speculation was that she was either a lock for the roster and Coach Dunn wanted to use her minutes evaluating someone else, or 3M was hurt and couldn't play. We never got a good answer. She hurt herself in practice, but we're not sure if that happened before this game or after.

The game overall is pretty ugly. Both teams are sloppy with the ball (except Ruthie Bolton - she has a fantastic shot), both teams seem to be running into their own players, fouls are raining down from the yellow rafters, but the score stays close throughout most of the game (the Storm keep between 5 and 10 points behind, during the second half).

A couple of the highlights - Adia Barnes and Felicia Ragland. When these two are in the game, the energy level rises 2 or 3 notches. They both seem to be fighting for rebounds that they have no business getting, they both are hitting great shots, and they both are playing hard defense. Neither of them seem to have any fear - Adia defended against Yolanda a couple of times and did a great job. Felicia was appearing out of no where to rip down rebounds away from the taller players. I know that these two are pushing out some of our existing players, but they are working their tails off and are earning everything they get. They are exciting to watch and we are glad they are on the team.

A couple of mediocre lights - Lucienne Berthieu, Kate Paye and Danielle McCulley. None of them get that much playing time and they don't really do much with the time they do get. Kate does play some good defense, but it looks like she might still be hurt with the injury she came into camp with. Danielle hasn't been with the team more than a couple of days or so and doesn't look very comfortable with the ball. And Lu, well I honestly don't remember anything she did (which may be one reason she got cut the next day).

Distubing low lights - Sue Bird is already showing signs of frustration. Towards the end of the game, she started to either take control and give the team the push they needed or she got tired of them screwing around and tried to win the game by herself - depends on how you look at it. On two or three trips down the floor, she drove to the basket against 2 and 3 Sacramento defenders with little real chance to hit the basket. This lead to...

...the worst thing that could possibly happen to the Storm nearly came horribly true at the end of the game. Sue Bird, writhing on the floor after a hard drive to the basket and bone jarring collision with a knot of Monarchs defenders. We couldn't tell right away how badly she was hurt. She sloooowly got up and bent over for a couple of minutes. She tried to walk over to the bench, but had to stop and bend over again and get a little support from one of the other players. Since she had been fouled on the play, she couldn't go out and had to shot the free throws. After that, they tried to sub her out but the refs kept making her come back in, even after play had started and then stopped again. It was very weird and she was in obvious pain. She finally got to sit down and Sheri Hedlund, the Storm trainer, went straight to work. As it turns out, as most of you know - bruised thigh. Damn, damn, damn.

Notes:

I think the local authorities thought that we were going to riot or something. There were 5 or 6 sherrif's cruisers parked outside the gym and it seemed like there were cops everywhere. I understand the security thing, but this was waaaay overboard.

Bungie ball is back! I love bungie ball. They need to have bungie ball every game, every time out even. I can't get enough.

An additional perspective by Sasse:

After the long, agonizing drive to the hinterlands of Seattle (have I ever been there in 11 years of living in this area? No.) I arrive five minutes late to the game. Argh. I have never been late to a Storm game. It's a good thing it’s preseason.

I spy a seat in the front row close to the door; it’s the only thing I can see available at the moment. Fortunately, a woman who sits two seats in front of me at the Key is sitting there, so I happily plop down next to her. I am sitting there yelling and screaming as per usual and so don’t notice the exact moment the woman with the commanding presence sits down on my right.

We exchange comments here and there, as strangers do when seated together and they find they get along. I cheer on Ragland and make a couple appreciative comments about her before a man walks up to the woman on my right and introduces himself. He is a college coach and has thought she looks familiar; she is the women’s basketball coach at Oregon State. I am sitting next to Felicia Ragland’s former coach.

Once the man is gone, I express my appreciation to this woman – Judy Spoelstra – for helping to shape Ragland. The fans have really taken to her, I explain, and Spoelstra seems to appreciate that. In exchange for a few questions, like am I a season ticket holder and where do I sit, I get some choice nuggets. Ragland wasn’t that good at basketball when she first entered high school. In fact, her only shot was off the backboard. She eventually evolved into the fearless incarnation of today, which in the three preseason games before this, has translated into double figure-scoring. I ask Spoelstra if there is a funny side beneath all that seriousness and she says “Oh yeah, Fee is a crackup.”

Fee. Spoelstra says “c’mon, Fee” a lot during the game. I mention to her that I call Ragland “The Beav” because eventually I hope the team gets to a point where they leave it to Beav all the time. She really likes that – tells me to tell the Storm marketing people about it. She mentions Ragland’s fearlessness despite her size, and I tell her that a friend of mine (stormrocks) wants to bake The Beav some cookies. She laughs.

A woman has walked in front of us while we’re talking, out the door and in to the hall. I think absent-mindedly that she looks familiar, but it isn’t until a few minutes later when she walks back in and across my line of vision that it hits me: Sue Bird’s mom. I don’t even remember her first name. I just know her face from the adoring clapping photos taken of her during the NCAA championships.

“That’s Sue Bird’s mom,” I say, and Spoelstra and my friend on my left say simultaneously, “it is?”

Sue Bird’s mom is restless. Maybe she’s jet-lagged, maybe she misses Swin, Jones and Williams, maybe she hates to see Sue lose. Or maybe she can’t figure out what’s up with Dunn’s sweatshirt. But she walks out the door again, right before Sue takes a hit to the leg and starts limping around. Mom is back inside in a few minutes.

“Hey, Sue Bird’s mom,” I say as she leans on the railing right next to us.

She smiles, strained, and says, “which knee did she hit?” My friend gets up immediately to ask her which ACL it was that Sue tore many years ago. It was on the same knee.

After a couple minutes it’s apparent that Bird’s injury isn’t major, and mom relaxes a bit.

The game is over soon after that, and Spoelstra and I are finally introducing ourselves. Mind you, this is the night before the final cuts are made, but Coach is planning to be at the Portland game June 2, and as many games in Seattle as she can stand, being it’s such a long drive from Corvallis.

“You sound pretty confident Ragland’s on the team,” I say.

She grins.

Additional - Storm at Sacramento, May 18

by Kim Callahan from Womens Basketball Online

In my opinion, Felicia Ragland was the most impressive player on the floor. Maybe just because I hadn't seen her play in person before - and didn't expect her to play so well! The girl is NOT playing like a rookie. She started along with Jackson, Randall, Henning, and Edwards - and this is the line up that beat the Monarchs.

At the beginning of the game the offense looked much better than it did last year, but when the subs started to come in it looked much the same as did last year - pass about the ball around then take an outside shot. By the end of the game the whole Storm offense had pretty much deteriorated to that. Very little inside game. I'm not sure what's so hard about drawing up plays that put Lauren Jackson under the basket instead of taking long outside shots.

Their defense is still outstanding and were able to take advantage of the fact that it seems players like Yo and Ticha are still adjusting to the smaller ball size. Sloppy ball handling by both of them. Lots of bobbling the around.

If Ragland doesn't make the cut, I will go up to Seattle and bop Lin Dunn upside the head myself. Unless of course the Monarchs pick her up, in which case I'll send her a dozen roses!

Sparse crowd - mostly due to the fact that the game started at 2pm while the Kings playoff game at Arco started at 3:30pm. I'd say about a quarter of the crowd or so left at halftime which started about 3:15.

Didn't get any stats from the game, and since the UC Davis Rec. Hall only needs the bare minimum (they're D-2) there was no scoreboard with stats as you would see at pro or many D-1 games. Shoulda snatched some of the stat sheets from the scorer's table!