The Seattle Storm beat the San Antonio Silver Stars in a decisive 83-69 victory Friday night.

Although the beginning of the first quarter saw the two teams neck and neck, the Storm finished the quarter 25-16 with a 12-2 run behind 10 points (4/4) from Sue Bird.  The Storm maintained about a 10 point lead throughout the rest of the game.

The Storm outrebounded the Stars 37-27, although that's probably because San Antonio didn't have a lot of boards to clean up (comparatively) as they were outshot by the Storm 46.8% to 38.5%.  It seemed like there were a lot of fouls called for not a lot of contact, but they were called both ways so they just made the game slow, not unfair.  The Storm shot a blistering (and uncharacteristic) 95.7% from the freethrow line, 22/23 versus San Antonio's 16/20.  However, they had 18 turnovers, 16 by the 4:59 mark of the third quarter before they cleaned it up.

Ramu Tokashiki did not play and will not play for the next 3 games, as she flew back home to Japan to help the Japanese national team qualify for the 2016 summer Olympics.  Abby Bishop was also out due to an injury she suffered in practice before last week's game.  The rest of the Storm picked up the slack, however.

In a dazzling return to glory, Crystal Langhorne regained her mojo tonight with a vengeance, scoring 22 points on 8 of 12 shooting and pulling down 10 rebounds.  Lang had struggled in her previous two games, amassing only 10 points and 11 rebounds in both combined, so it was great to see her return to her normal high-scoring, high-rebounding self.  Strangely enough, even though she averages 12.7 points per game and 7.0 rebounds, this was also her first double-double of the season.  She scored inside and outside alike, taking advantage of one slow San Antonio post after the next and scoring with apparent ease.

Sue had a great offensive first quarter, but shuffled her feet and threw bad passes a couple of times, ending up with 4 turnovers for her 5 assists.  Jewel Loyd had an uncharacteristically quiet game, getting only 7 points, 4 rebounds and 0 assists, turning the ball over 4 times to boot.  She can't be our savior every game, I suppose.

Markeisha Gatling and Jenna O'Hea each scored 11 for the Storm.  Jenna also pulled down 6 rebounds and 5 assists for a really nice overall game.

On the other end, Sophia Young-Malcolm and Jia Perkins scored 18 and 13 points, respectively.  Kayla McBride had a quiet night, only scoring 7 points, although she did have 4 assists, 3 steals, and 2 rebounds.  Her low scoring can probably be attributed to Alysha Clark's smothering defensive efforts (she also managed to score 10 points, so go Alysha!).

Although both teams are looking for a good draft pick instead of a playoff run, this was still a good game for the Storm to win.  They are all but guaranteed the best odds of getting the first overall pick (see last week's article), and it gives the team (and the fans) some confidence in Seattle's ability to win at home going into next season.