Regular Season: 22-11; 2nd Place

Ladies and Gentlemen! Your Seattle Storm Starting 5!?!

That's right...Shyra Ely (0), Katie Gearlds (4), Kelly Santos (9), Camille Little (20), and Tanisha Wright (30) started the game last night. The Brawling Bench kicked it off, and kept it going. Through bad plays and worse refs, the Bad-Ass Bench of Seattle held off the Atlanta Dream 77-72 last night at the Key.

The usual starters were all in attendance, including LJ who is back with the team but still a week or two from playing. With Swin and Sheryl also injured, and Sue and Yolanda resting nagging issues of their own, Coach Agler played the bench all night.

Katie Gearlds had a career night with 20 points. She was cold starting out, missing several 3-point attempts, but finally found her shot in the second half and went all out.







Also putting up a career-high last night was Camille Little with 21 points (team high last night as well). Camille is very glad not to be going home right now with the 4-30 Atlanta team we acquired her from mid-season.






Beck's Back! #8 makes her triumphant return to Key Arena after being cut back in June to make way for Camille. With all of the injuries on the team - and the Storm's good fortune she wasn't picked up by anyone else - Kimberly Beck has been re-signed for the season. Good to see her in the Green & Gold last night.




Kelly Santos - here getting up close and personal with fellow Brazilian Erika Desouza - was rocking in the paint last night, with 8 points and 5 rebounds. Between her and Ashley Robinson, we are deep in talent under the basket.






Ashley had a monster block last night on former Storm player Iziane Castro-Marques. A volleyball spike that even had the Atlanta players standing up and saying, "Daaaaaaaamn."

Plus she's pretty.

Alison!

You all remember Alison Bales, right? If not, go read all about it first here and then here.







Bottom Line...the Storm end the Home Season 16-1! This is not only a franchise record, but it ties a WNBA record for home wins in a season. 22 wins overall is also a new franchise record, and there's one more game to go.

Photos, now and forever awesome, because Stephanie took them.

BIG shout out to the Traveling Band Of Merry Men and Woman who attended the game last night. Technogreek, 2.0 & Eliece, and The Jasons were all on hand to help Sir Palindrome celebrate his birthday! It was the first Storm game for everyone except JasonB who came to a game with George back in July. George didn't make it to the game tonight (would have been his 3rd...I think I've converted him!), but he did make it to the dinner at T.S. McHugh's afterwards. Lots of good food and conversation with awesome friends, and I was happy to help cross #8 off of Palindrome's "101 List."

Next Game: Final regular season game on Sunday, 9/14 in Los Angeles. Game time is 1:30 Pacific, and it will air on ESPN2. So watch it!

Win or lose, the Storm will finish the season in 2nd place. Even if San Antonio loses their final regular season game to Sacramento tonight, and we BEAT LA! BEAT LA! BEAT LA! tomorrow (thus leaving Seattle and San Antonio with identical records) San Antonio beat us 2-1 in head-to-head match-ups this season, so they get the trophy.

What the Storm have done is secure Home Court Advantage for the playoffs, with a better record than either Detroit or Connecticut (the #1 and 2 seeds in the East).

Gonna be one hell of a postseason. I can't wait!