Final score: Storm 81 – Sky 69 (W) (4-3)

Submitted by Scowl

Game Photos | Scott L

Looks like I'm going to beat Bringy to the punch because I've discovered the hotel's secret connection to the Internet. It's hidden behind the HDTV that has no HDTV content.

Note: don't get off at the UIC stop on the Blue Line. It's a trick. Get off at Rancine otherwise you'll be jogging for half a mile to the Pavillion. Also this dry sunny moderately warm weather beats the 90 degree steam bath of last year.

Last night was "Fiesta Night" with everyone getting some cool looking but very annoying basketball shakers. The staff was dressed in panchos including Sky Guy, oh I mean Hombre del Cielo.

As usual, plenty of empty seats even in the courtside section we were in behind our bench. There were even more Storm fans there this year who know nothing about Stormfans.org. Somehow they got front row seats so it must be a matter of who you know in this town. Karen Bryant was stuck about ten rows back in a crummy section until she was allowed down next to the team. Even Katie's parents were stuck up there while we had a dozen empty courtside seats all around us. Nothing about this place makes any sense.

The Storm started off just like a team that had just gotten off the plane and started playing with a basketball they'd never seen before. Turnovers everywhere. Fouls fouls fouls on everyone.

Players taking turns bouncing the ball off of every part of the rim. Sue took a shot that went off the front of the rim then after a rebound shot the exact same shot that went exactly off the front of the rim like last time. Betty took a poke to the eye and while she looked OK, maybe that's why she had such a bad game.

Meanwhile the Sky were tearing to the basket, drawing fouls and making us look like pushovers. We never went to the line during the first half! We were playing dumb sloppy basketball and the fans were loving it!

Example: Wendy makes a fantastic backcourt steal and has to call a timeout because no one bothers to get back to help her out.

Then two good things happened. Sue got pissed and started yelling things that seemed to make a difference.

Also out of nowhere, Katie starting having a great game. She had been smiling the whole game even when we were 12 points down like she had a trick up her sleeve. And she did! She finally showed off the three point shooting we've been waiting for. This was not Katie shooting threes for fun. This was Katie shooting threes when we desperately needed points. The Sky's lead started to fall and by halftime, we looked more like a team.

The worst thing about the Pavillion is that since they have few fans to make noise, they make up for it with this deafening drum band. Whenever we had the ball it sounded like they were dropping artillery shells on our team. Extremely, almost painfully loud.

But they stopped playing after a while and I doubt it's a coincidence that we started playing a lot better.

In the second half the team we would recognize as the Storm showed up. Janell played much much better under the basket and was even drawing fouls. On the other team. They even let us shoot free throws and everything.

Right behind Janell, LJ came back and also started drawing those fouls we couldn't get during the first half.

Here's the best moment. Katie drew a foul off of Wyckoff while scoring yet another a three pointer! A four point play! The Storm went crazy for her!

From that point on it was just the Sky playing bad defense. When we put our B team in, they did have some wonderful offensive plays including a beautiful alley-oop pass and layup that got the crowd pumped. We were nursing a twenty point lead so they didn't really care about the score any more.

The worst moment of the game by far...Tanisha was dribbling by AD and chatting with her since we were slowing down the pace of the game. AD said something to her, turned to the bench and walked off. Everyone could clearly see Tanisha's frustrated if not angry response while shaking her head:

"What?"

Either Tanisha had no clue what AD just said to her or didn't like what she heard. We all saw it and looked at each other in disbelief.

My streak of Storm blow outs continues! (I didn't go to the San Antonio game, sorry). Let's see if it can hold up tonight against a much much better team.

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