After losing on Wednesday night, Seattle pins another loss on Sun

Connecticut’s Diamond Miller (1) had a team-high 13 points in Friday night’s loss to the Storm at Climate Pledge Arena for their sixth loss in seven games. (Photo by Scott Eklund/NBAE via Getty Images)

At one time, these two franchises faced each other for a WNBA championship.

In 2004, former UConn star Sue Bird and Australian Olympian Lauren Jackson led Seattle to their first WNBA championship prevailing in a best-of-three series, 2-1, over the Connecticut Sun, led by Bloomfield native Nykesha Sales and Katie Douglas.

In game two, Sales scored a then-WNBA finals record of 32 points on the road but the Storm evened the series with a 67-65 victory.

Now, the two teams are at the bottom of the league trying to rebuild.

On Wednesday night, the Sun secured their first victory of the season with an 80-78 victory over Seattle thanks to Kennedy Burke converting on a three-point play with 2.8 seconds left in regulation. And the Sun got a franchise-record 62 points off the bench as Connecticut snapped a five-game losing streak.

It was the second consecutive season that the Sun opened the season with an 0-5 record – the worst starts in team history.

On Friday night, in the final meeting between the two teams before the Sun move to Houston in 2027, the Storm (2-4) rolled to 77-59 win behind a career-high 25 points and five rebounds from Zia Cooke and 17 points and six rebounds from Flau’jae Johnson.

Former Sun guard Natisha Hiedeman had 11 points and six assists for Seattle.

Diamond Miller led Connecticut (1-6) with 13 points and two steals while Aaliyah Edwards added 10 points and pulled down seven rebounds.

The game was a back-and-forth affair early, tied at 27-27 with 5:35 left in the second quarter. But Seattle finished out the first half with a 10-1 run to take a 37-28 lead at the break. The Sun missed their final seven field goals, a pair of free throws and turned the ball over five times.

In the third quarter, Johnson got four quick points to help Seattle increase their lead to 41-28 and the Sun couldn’t recover, never cutting the lead below 10 points.

Cooke had just 10 points on Wednesday and wasn’t going to get beat by the Sun again. She converted on 7-of-14 shots from the floor and made six three-point shots. “I took it personally,” she said. “I wasn’t going get beat twice by them.”

“She can score on anybody,” Johnson said “She gave us a spark. She is that girl.”

For the second straight game, Connecticut played without Brittney Griner, who is struggling with a rib injury. Olivia Nelson Ododa also remains out of action with an ankle injury.

In the win on Wednesday night, the Sun got big contributions off the bench with Charlisse Leger Walker, Raegan Beers, Nell Angloma and Kennedy Burke also scoring in double figures coming off the bench.

Walker, Beers and Angloma are all rookies. Walker had 16 points while Angloma, a 19-year-old from France, and Burke scored 15 points while Beers, an undrafted rookie out of Oklahoma scored 10.

They played most of the second half. “They played with a lot of energy and effort. I saw no reason to that them out. I didn’t want to break up the dynamic,” Sun coach Rachid Meziane said.

The Sun couldn’t get much going on Friday night.

Connecticut’s longest road trip of the season continues on Monday night with another 10 p.m. start at Golden State. The five-game West Coast swing concludes with another trip to Portland on Wednesday night for a 10 p.m. start.

The Sun return home to face Los Angeles on Saturday at 6 p.m. in Hartford at the PeoplesBank Arena – the first game in the capital city since 2003 for the Sun.