Having held their own on the road against two of the league’s top teams, the Golden State Valkyries hope to take advantage of a four-game homestand that tips off Monday night in San Francisco against the Connecticut Sun.
The Valkyries stunned the New York Liberty and then played the Indiana Fever tough in defeat in back-to-back road efforts Thursday and Friday. They’ve now gotten two days to rest up for visits from the Sun, Fever, Las Vegas Aces and Portland Fire over the next nine days.
After having allowed just a league-best 74.5 points in their first four games, the Valkyries watched as the Fever put up 90 in Friday’s eight-point win.
It will be a point of emphasis this week, guard Tiffany Hayes assured the media after the defeat.
“Defense is our bread and butter, and 90 points is too much for any team,” the former UConn star said. “We better go back to the drawing board and fix the little things, because it is the little things. It’s us; it’s no one else.”
Coming off an injury-plagued season and then having suffered a dislocated left pinky four-plus minutes into the 2026 season opener, Hayes returned on the trip to put up nine points against the Liberty, then 19 against the Fever. Those efforts came off the bench after she had started the opener.
Connecticut was held to a season-low 59 points in its third consecutive road game Friday, an 18-point loss at Seattle. The contest was a rematch from two nights earlier in Seattle, when the Sun recorded their first win of the season, edging the Storm 80-78.
The Sun had another nail-biter – an 83-82 loss at Portland – to open a five-game Western swing that concludes with another rematch, this one with the expansion Fire, on Wednesday.
The wear-and-tear of the early season trip has already shown on the Sun, as Brittney Griner, the leading scorer at Portland, missed both Seattle games with a rib injury. The Sun already were without Olivia Nelson-Ododa, who has yet to play on the trip because of a sprained right ankle.
With the team’s two tallest players out of action, the Sun called upon undrafted rookie Raegan Beers to help anchor a reserve unit that outscored its Storm counterparts 82-71 in the split.
Beers, a Colorado native who began her college career on the West Coast at Oregon State, accumulated 14 points, 12 rebounds and three steals in 42 minutes in the Seattle games.
Connecticut coach Rachid Meziane was impressed.
“She’s a sponge, and I feel like she just (had) opportunities to show what she’s capable of,” Meziane told reporters in Seattle. “We can play her. She’s very solid and she wasn’t shy to play. She took her shot and she brought what we are missing with (Griner’s) absence – this anchor in the paint. She’s a good screener.”
The teams met three times in the Valkyries’ inaugural season in 2025, with the home team prevailing on all three occasions. Hayes had 14 and 17 points in a starting role in Golden State’s home wins but just four on 0-for-8 shooting in the road loss.
-Field Level Media
