StingRays Get Caught, Not Passed, by Lasers

The Long Beach StingRays’ winning streak grew to four and the San Jose Lasers’ ended at nine at the Pyramid on Saturday night, after Long Beach survived a rally led by Clarisse Machanguana and Jennifer Azzi for a 99-91 victory.

Against the hottest team in the ABL, Long Beach (16-10) played its best basketball of the season before a crowd of 1,935--for maybe 3 1/2 quarters.

San Jose (15-14) got a strong game from Azzi, who scored 30 points.

The 1996 Olympic team point guard was 10 for 19 from the floor, eight for eight on free throws . . . and didn’t miss a shot of any kind until 4:28 to play in the third quarter.

Machanguana, a 6-foot-5, 22-year-old from Mozambique by way of Portugal and Old Dominion, nearly caught Long Beach by herself in the fourth quarter, when she scored 10 of her career-high 22 points.

Long Beach dominated the early going, taking a 28-17 first-quarter lead and stretching it to 55-41 at the half.

But then Azzi led a third-quarter surge.

Long Beach Coach Maura McHugh called it her team’s best game so far, except for the part about letting San Jose back in it in the third quarter.

“That’s our M.O. against San Jose, we get big leads on them early, then let them catch up,” she said.

“We played some great defense on Azzi. She was just putting everything down. She made great shots all night.”

After trailing twice by 17 points in the first half, San Jose crept to within four at 70-66 late in the third quarter, tied it at 79 on an Azzi drive with 6:20 left in the fourth, but never put the rally over the top.

At 79-79, Yolanda Griffith (20 points, 12 rebounds) scored underneath on an assist by Andrea Nagy, who then scored on a drive to make it 83-79.

Nagy made two free throws with 1:15 left for 93-89. The clincher was a Trisha Stafford free throw and a left-handed layup with seven seconds.

Long Beach has won eight of its last nine.

Said Laser Coach Angela Beck: “We figured if we hold Yolanda to 15, 16, we win. She got 20, and we didn’t have enough people step up to help Azzi and Machanguana.”