StingRays Finally Play Entire Game

Long Beach put together four solid quarters and registered an 85-70 victory over the Atlanta Glory on Sunday, but the bigger news at the Pyramid was confirmation of a rumor that Portland’s Natalie Williams--arguably the ABL’s best player--has asked to be traded to Long Beach.

A league source confirmed that Williams made such a request at the All-Star game two weekends ago, but the source added there will be no talks about such a deal until after this season.

Contacted late Sunday night, Williams would say only: “I’ve made no decisions regarding next year. All I’m thinking about now is winning a championship in Portland.”

The 6-foot-1 Williams, in the first season of a two-year ABL contract, is the league’s leading scorer (21.7 points per game), No. 2 rebounder (11.2) and leads the league in shooting at 55%.

StingRay General Manager Bill McGillis wouldn’t comment on the subject.

Williams, 27, a two-sport (including volleyball) All-American at UCLA, owns a condo about two miles from the Pyramid.

It isn’t known who or how many players Portland would get in such a blockbuster deal.

Meanwhile, Long Beach (21-15) righted itself in the ABL’s Western Conference race before 2,121. With Williams’ Portland Power (24-15) beating San Jose on Sunday, the StingRays have eight games remaining to catch the West-leading Power and get a 10-day break preceding the playoff semifinals.

Sunday, it looked as if Long Beach had the bench to do it.

Niesa Johnson had a game-high 23 points in 30 minutes. Nicky McCrimmon had 10 for Atlanta.

Cass Bauer, a second-year 6-4 post player out of Montana State, scored the StingRays’ last eight points, finishing with 12 and 10 rebounds in relief of Venus Lacy.

Unlike their Friday night collapse in Denver, where they blew a 16-point halftime lead, the StingRays weathered an Atlanta run in the second quarter, seeing their lead drop from 27-16 to 36-35, to win comfortably.

Beverly Williams and Johnson took charge in the third quarter, leading Long Beach to a 9-0 run and Atlanta (14-23) never threatened after that.

Point guard Andrea Nagy (with a season-high 13 assists) expertly directed an effective StingRay fastbreak off 18 Atlanta turnovers.

A much better reaction to difficulty this time, Coach Maura McHugh said.

“We had a couple of letdowns, but this time we just played harder and weathered them,” she said.

Atlanta player/Coach Teresa Edwards took herself out of the starting lineup, the first time in the last 39 she hasn’t started.

She played 32 minutes, finishing with 18 points, six assists and two steals.