StingRays Regain First Place After Hard-Fought Victory

The Long Beach StingRays tried to make a statement Tuesday night with a 22-point third-quarter burst against Colorado at the Pyramid, but the statement turned out to be:

“Why do we keep making this so difficult?”

Long Beach finally beat the Xplosion, 78-69, but did it the hard way.

Whatever, before 1,881, Venus Lacy’s 27-point night enabled Long Beach (20-14) to slip back into first place by percentage points over Portland (21-15) in the ABL’s Western Conference.

Colorado (16-19), in fourth place, lost its third straight and is now 2-4 against the StingRays but gets one last shot at Long Beach Friday night in Denver.

The two played a tight first half, with Lacy scoring 20 points in the low post, most of them on assists from point guard Andrea Nagy and forward Yolanda Griffith.

Then Lacy led her team to one of its best runs of the season.

She scored the first four points of the second half, and Long Beach went from a 35-32 halftime edge to 55-40 in six minutes. Lacy, Griffith, Beverly Williams and Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil, in fact, pinned a 12-2 run on Colorado to start the second half.

But even though the StingRays fashioned a 58-42 lead at one point, Colorado still forced Long Beach to hold on at the finish.

The Xplosion managed to pull within 72-69 before Griffith and Lacy converted layups to clinch the victory.

Around the ABL

Dawn Staley’s three-point basket with 30 seconds remaining--her only points of the game--helped the Philadelphia Rage (12-23) end an eight-game losing streak in beating the visiting San Jose Lasers (18-19), 72-67, before 1,203. . . . Teresa Edwards and Stacey Lovelace each scored 18 points as the Atlanta Glory (14-21) ended the visiting New England Blizzard’s five-game winning streak with a 76-68 victory before 4,082. The Blizzard fell to 20-17.