The Toronto Tempo will be out for a repeat win against the visiting Seattle Storm on Saturday afternoon.
The expansion Tempo defeated the visiting Storm 86-73 on May 13 for the first victory in franchise history.
Toronto (4-4) is coming off Wednesday’s 111-104 road win over the Chicago Sky that snapped a two-game skid.
Seattle (3-5) had a two-game winning streak halted Wednesday with a 78-64 loss to the Washington Mystics.
In their win at Chicago, the Tempo had a career-best 29 points from Nyara Sabally, who also had six rebounds, two steals and two blocked shots.
“This is really not surprising to me,” said teammate Marina Mabrey, who had 24 points and seven assists. “(Sabally) is a really good player and can read the game really well and is super smart.”
“She is an important player for us,” coach Sandy Brondello said about Sabally.
Brittney Sykes added 20 points for the Tempo, who shot 56.1% (37 of 66), including 46.2% (12 of 26) from 3-point range.
The Storm trailed 48-29 by halftime against the Mystics and could not recover despite a 19-12 fourth-quarter edge.
Jade Melbourne led Seattle scorers with 15 points.
The Storm shot only 34.9% (22 of 63) from the field and 21.7% (5 of 23) from beyond the arc.
“We won’t turn the page,” Storm coach Sonia Raman said. “We’re never going to turn the page on any game. We want to make sure that, win or lose, we learn and we grow. We’ll go back. We’ll watch film. We’ll process it and then make the adjustments we need to make because some of the things that happened today are things that we want to be better at going forward, no matter who we play.”
In the first meeting against the Storm, the Tempo were led by Mabrey’s 26 points on 6-for-11 shooting from 3-point distance. She also had four rebounds, three assists and four steals.
“(Mabrey) makes all these 3s, but it’s how she creates for her teammates, too,” Brondello said.
Sykes added 18 points and eight rebounds against Seattle.
Dominique Malonga scored 21 points to lead the Storm in their first visit to Toronto. She did not play because of concussion protocol on Wednesday.
–Field Level Media
