The San Antonio Stars have had a hard time on the road. A date with the Minnesota Lynx was not going to help things. The silver and black lost 14 straight in Minnesota coming into Sunday’s game and at the end of 40 minutes that streak would run to 15 games.
Dearica Hamby scored 13 points and pulled down eight rebounds, but the Stars fell 66-49 to the Lynx in front of 8,951 fans inside the Target Center on Sunday night.
Hamby was the lone Stars player in double figures. Danielle Adams had nine points, all in the first half and Kayla Alexander added six off the bench. San Antonio remains winless on the road after seven games.
“The first quarter really hurt us, I thought they came out and we missed, just missed some attempts that didn’t give us any kind of flow offensively,” San Antonio head coach Dan Hughes said. “I thought we got a little off the plan. Defensively, we kind of played in the game the way we wanted. We had a hard time guarding Moore, but that’s a universal problem.”
San Antonio was without two of their top scorers for the third straight game. Kayla McBride (foot), Jia Perkins (calf) and Alex Montgomery (knee) all missed the game with injuries.
The Lynx were led by Maya Moore’s 20 points, including 15 in the first half. Seimone Augustus added 12 points for Minnesota (9-3), whose defense allowed the Stars to shoot 29 percent for the game and gave up just six points in the first quarter.
“I think we also have to note that San Antonio is without some players that really have been known to spread the floor on you in McBride, Perkins and Montgomery,” Minnesota head coach Cheryl Reeve said. “Without that presence, you’re able to kind of focus more where they’re trying to score without those players – which is in the paint.”
San Antonio cut the deficit to 11 in the second quarter, but could never get closer than that.
The Stars are now 3-10 on the season and will return to the court on Wednesday when they travel to New York to face Tina Charles and the Liberty at 10 a.m. inside Madison Square Garden.
