The Golden State Valkyries (25-11) defeated the Dallas Wings (21-16) at home last Monday to clinch their second-ever spot in the WNBA Playoffs in their sophomore season in the WNBA.<\/p>\n
The theme of last week\u2019s game was \u2018Back to School Night,\u2019 celebrating the start of the academic year for students in the Bay Area through activities during game breaks. Fans from all over the Bay filled the arena, including Warriors guards Stephen Curry, Will Richard, Moses Moody and Gary Payton II, who came out to support their sister team. The game was sold out with a total attendance of 18,064 fans at Chase Center, marking the Valkyries\u2019 41st consecutive sold-out regular season game.<\/p>\n
The Wings\u2019 notable players include Arike Ogunbowale, Paige Bueckers and developmental forward-guard Haley Jones, who led Stanford Women\u2019s Basketball to a national championship in 2021. Although the team started the game with a fast pace, the Valkyries eventually matched their energy, and the opening quarter left the Valkyries on top with the score sitting at 20-19. <\/p>\n
Valkyries guards Veronica Burton and Gabby Williams brought an energy that matched the crowd\u2019s chants in the second quarter, lighting up the court together with several three-pointers. Their energetic performance ensured that the Valks remained on top, ending the half with a 16-point lead.<\/p>\n
The Valks brought the same energy in the third quarter, as they never surrendered their lead. The team\u2019s offense remained hot, ending the third quarter with a 62-46 advantage. Still, the Wings did not throw in the towel, as they continued fighting in the fourth quarter. While the Wings were able to cut the Valks\u2019 lead to single digits, their efforts were not enough. The Valks came out on top with a big win in Ballhalla.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When asked about how making the playoffs a second time compared to her first appearance, Burton said, \u201cI have that very similar level of joy, and I think that\u2019s what\u2019s unique about Golden State \u2014 just the culture that we have here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Valkyries\u2019 head coach Natalie Nakase said the win was \u201creally good for us because we just want to make sure every night we play for Ballhalla.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a special type of purpose tonight, so we\u2019re happy we got the job done, but we got a lot of work to do,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Golden State Valkyries (25-11) defeated the Dallas Wings (21-16) at home last Monday to clinch their second-ever…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":845597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49],"tags":[5977,3955,1339,6413,22829,1425,62,172303,67,132,68,408222,232,3357],"class_list":["post-1020263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-alum","tag-athletics","tag-basketball","tag-games","tag-haley-jones","tag-playoffs","tag-sports","tag-stanford-womens-basketball","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-valkyires","tag-wnba","tag-womens-basketball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117148417327794572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1020263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1020263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1020263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1020263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}