Freeman Coliseum – The San Antonio Stars have taken care of home court recently. Winners of four in a row on their home court, that would provide the perfect send off as the team went into the All-Star break.
Danielle Robinson scored 18 points as the Stars defeated the Indiana Fever 80-62 in front of 6,846 fans at the Freeman Coliseum on Tuesday afternoon, the biggest margin of the season for San Antonio.
Sophia Young-Malcolm added 15 points and 10 rebounds, while Kayla McBride chipped in 14 for San Antonio, who held Indiana to 30 percent shooting in the game and shot 60 percent themselves.
Danielle Adams hit a season-high four three pointers and scored 12 as the Stars earned their fifth straight home victory.
“I thought it was probably our best basketball game,” Stars head coach Dan Hughes said. “I thought early we threw it around a little bit which was wasn’t typical for us. They play a very aggressive, good style of defense. Once we started taking care of the ball, I thought we played both ends of the floor as well as we played all year.”
The win puts the Stars in the fourth and final playoff berth with the Seattle Storm, but by tiebreaker have the fourth seed. However, the All-Star break could not come at a better time for the silver and black. They were without Jia Perkins (calf) and Alex Montgomery (knee) for the six straight game.
“It comes at a good time to be honest with you,” Hughes said. “We’ve had to do things in games because of our travel. We could benefitfrom a couple days of practice.”
The Fever were led by Tamika Catchings’ 20 points as no one else scored in double figures. Indiana (8-8) had travel issues coming into the Alamo City, facing a 12 hour delay.
“San Antonio clearly came out ready and focused to play today,” Catchings said. “From the starters to the bench everybody came focused and I felt like for us we, for whatever reason, just didn’t come out with the intensity we needed to have for 40 minutes.”
San Antonio used a 18-6 run in the second quarter to pull away for good, capped off by Robinson’s lay in with less than a minute to go in the first half to give the Stars an 18 point lead.
The Stars are now 5-11 on the season going into the WNBA All-Star break and will return to the court next Wednesday when they welcome the Atlanta Dream to Freeman Coliseum at 7 p.m.
