10x WNBA All-Star Makes History on Wednesday
The Golden State Valkyries head to the All-Star break on a two-game losing streak after a 67-58 road loss to the Seattle Storm Wednesday at Climate Pledge Arena, pushing the expansion franchise out of the 8th and final playoff spot halfway through the regular season.
Scoring the fewest points of their inaugural season, the Valkyries had trouble gaining momentum on offense. Cecilia Zandalasini led the Valkyries with 12 points and four rebounds in 25 minutes of action.
While scoring was few and far between in the contest, one Storm player made WNBA scoring history with a 22-point performance fitting of a future hall-of-famer.
Nneka Ogwumike, a 10x All-Star, WNBA champion and former MVP added to her monumental list of accolades when she passed former Storm player Candace Dupree for sixth place on the all-time scoring list. As of Wednesday, Ogwumike is 484 points away from matching hall-of-famer Tamika Catchings for fifth place.
Ogwumike also passed Katie Smith for 13th all-time in career wins in the victory against Golden State with 251, per the team.
After four years at Stanford, the 6’2’’ power forward was selected by the Los Angeles Sparks with the number one overall pick in the 2012 WNBA Draft. She won an MVP and championship with the franchise in 2016 alongside fellow star Candace Parker.
In her 13th season, the 35-year-old Ogwumike averages 17.1 points, and 7.7 rebounds per game–good for 7th in the league, per WNBA stats.
After a steady June, Golden State has lost five of its last six games. The 14-9 Storm are 6-4 in their last 10 games, and bounce back after a late game loss to the Washington Mystics.
Anwar Stetson is a Multimedia Sports Journalist from Los Angeles, California. He previously worked as a TV News Reporter for KRCR News Channel 7 in Chico, California--covering politics, local news, wildfires, crime, and high school football. As an Assistant Editor for Spectrum Sportsnet: Los Angeles, Anwar worked on award-winning programs Backstage:Lakers and Backstage:Dodgers, giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the two franchises' most prominent athletes. Anwar is a graduate of the University of Southern California, where he received his Master's Degree in Specialized Journalism (Sports Emphasis) in 2019. He graduated from the University of California, Merced with a B.A. in English in 2016. In addition to Sports Illustrated, Anwar covers high school sports for Prep Network, and the WNBA for The Sporting Tribune.