StingRays Finish on the Right Note

It was, everyone agreed afterward, an excellent wrap-up to a successful regular season, and just maybe the Long Beach StingRays bottled a theme to take into the playoffs Saturday.

Call it winning the loose-and-easy way.

They ended their punishing road trip Tuesday night with an upbeat victory over Philadelphia, 108-93, went two for four on the eastern trip, and finished their first regular season at 26-18, third-best in the nine-team ABL.

Long Beach opens a best-of-three playoff series against Colorado at the Pond of Anaheim at 4 p.m. Saturday.

On a rainy night in Philadelphia, before an announced 2,322 at the Palestra, the StingRays won a laugher. In the fourth quarter, with all the starters on the bench, there was center Venus Lacy, joking with the Philly mascot by the StingRay bench.

Lacy, who suffered a slight ankle sprain in Atlanta, played only 13 minutes, 10 in the first half.

Meanwhile, Yolanda Griffith and Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil combined for 45 points and Long Beach had six players score in double figures.

“We needed this,” Lacy said.

“We came out very relaxed but also very focused in the first half against a team that really wanted to beat us.”

“This is a good one to take into the playoffs. Really, this has been such a long trip [four games, four cities, six days], we haven’t had time to think much about the playoffs.”

Philadelphia (13-31), finishing with its eighth loss in nine games and going 0 for 4 against Long Beach--with no loss closer than 15 points--was never in it.

Griffith and Davis-Wrightsil scored nine points in the middle of the first quarter and Long Beach went on to lead, 51-38, at the half.

The Rage made a run at the end of the third quarter, but when Griffith scored on a putback with five seconds left, it gave Long Beach a 74-61 lead and it seemed to deflate Philadelphia, because Long Beach opened the final period with five quick, easy points.

“I was really happy to see us come out with some focus and fire, particularly at the end of a long trip,” Coach Maura McHugh said.

Around the ABL

Vicki Hall had 15 points and eight rebounds as Colorado (21-23) held San Jose (21-23) to a franchise-low point total in a 78-48 victory before 3,901 at Denver. . . . Natalie Williams had 29 points but Portland (27-17) was an 82-79 loser at Seattle (15-29).