![\"Golden](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image_15d113.jpeg\"\/ "\\"Golden")
Photo: CAYLA WITHERS\/The Stanford Daily<\/p>\nThe Bay Area\u2019s newest sports franchise, the Golden State Valkyries (6-3), faced off against the defending WNBA champions, the Las Vegas Aces (6-3), in an exciting matchup at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Sunday. 18,064 fans filled the arena, marking the Valkyries\u2019 29th consecutive sold-out game. It was also the Valkyries\u2019 Stanford night, bringing many students, drawing faculty and alumni to the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The game started off close in the first half with 12 lead changes between both teams. Eventually, the Aces found themselves back on top after the second quarter, 43-41.<\/p>\n
The Valkyries shot the ball well, at 65.9% from 3 in the first half \u2014 a 74.8% increase from their season 3-point average. Still, the Aces had strong defense, a flowing offense and rebounds that gave them the lead at the half. Valkyries\u2019 forward Janelle Sala\u00fcn reached her 500th career point in the first quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Head coach of the Valkyries, Natalie Nakase, did not think her team performed well in the first half. \u201cWe\u2019re not protecting the paint, we\u2019re not outrebounding the Aces, we are just not being disciplined enough in general,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Las Vegas Aces\u2019 head coach Becky Hammon, also hoped that her team\u2019s performance would improve in the second half.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve been pretty good in the first twenty, pretty awful in the second twenty, so hopefully we play the next twenty minutes hard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Aces started to separate from the Valkyries in the third quarter. At one point, the Aces went on an 11-1 run and had a 14-point lead. Jackie Young, Aces guard, hit a triple, allowing her to break the 3,500 WNBA career points mark.<\/p>\n
Photo: CAYLA WITHERS\/The Stanford Daily<\/p>\n
The Aces ended the quarter with an 18-point lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fourth quarter became more intense as the Valkyries began to chip away at the Aces\u2019 lead, going on an 11-0 run near the end of the quarter and outscoring them 20-13 within eight minutes and 49 seconds of the fourth. But the offensive burst from the Valkyries wasn\u2019t enough. The Aces won the victory in The Bay, 91-81.<\/p>\n
Even though the Valkyries were down by as much as 24 points in the game, Gabby Williams still shined brightly, leading the Valkyries\u2019 offense with 20 points and four rebounds \u2014 a season high for the guard. She also had one assist and two steals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the Aces side, Aja Wilson led the game with a double-double. She had 28 points, 15 rebounds, four assists, four blocks and one steal. Though three or four players were defending her at times, she was still able to score in the paint.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the Valkyries\u2019 loss, the team\u2019s fourth-quarter performance made Williams hopeful.<\/p>\n
![\"Golden](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image_70d4c6.jpeg\"\/ "\\"Golden")
Photo: CAYLA WITHERS\/The Stanford Daily<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a long season, so our depth is going to be our strength,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThose guys getting in those minutes during crunch time, and against a really good team, the defending champs, that\u2019s huge for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked what adjustments were needed, Nakase said, \u201cIt starts with my leadership, and what I\u2019m saying to them. It\u2019s how I\u2019m correcting them. So it starts with me. I got to correct my message. I got to deliver better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the Aces, Wilson said her team \u201cwanted to make sure we played basketball the right way and come out with the energy that\u2019s needed\u2026this was a good test to see how we can show up for one another.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The game marked Becky Hammon\u2019s 150th win as a head coach in the WNBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bay Area\u2019s newest sports franchise, the Golden State Valkyries (6-3), faced off against the defending WNBA champions,…\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":[2341,15173,20890,19581,9769,28462,2473,15536,345795,4144,17271,2750,62,63443,67,132,68,232],"class_list":["post-845596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-aja-wilson","tag-bay-area","tag-becky-hammon","tag-chase-center","tag-gabby-williams","tag-golden-state","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-jackie-young","tag-janelle-salau00fcn","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-natalie-nakase","tag-san-francisco","tag-sports","tag-stanford","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845596","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=845596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845596\/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=845596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}