StingRays Get New Obstacle

In the Long Beach StingRays’ perfect world, here’s what happens at Battelle Hall tonight:

The team somehow plays another high-energy, no-quit basketball game, wins it, accepts the ABL championship trophy, then the players zip up their parkas--it snowed here Thursday--walk outside, climb into their ambulances and head home.

Long Beach will battle cold and flu symptoms as well as the Columbus Quest tonight in the fourth game of the best-of-five series.

Long Beach leads the series, 2-1.

Nine of the 10 players are ailing--only backup guard Niesa Johnson is healthy--and Coach Maura McHugh is ailing too.

Sore throats, sniffles, coughing, aching joints--this is a team that has everything. Even the 8-year-old daughter of star Yolanda Griffith is hurting.

How did she get to come?

Her school principal, Sue Fellenzer, is a big StingRay fan. And Candace gets good grades.

Yolanda Griffith, besides having a cold, played with a bruised thigh and calf Wednesday, then sat out the team’s Thursday afternoon practice.

Afterward, McHugh said she wanted her team to play with the same sense of urgency she expects to see from Columbus.

“Columbus is in a do-or-die situation,” she said. “We’re not, but I want us to feel that we are, to play like that.”

In an hours-long video session Thursday morning, McHugh’s players relived their Wednesday agony, when in the first quarter they shot two for 13, had nine turnovers and failed to score a point for the last 5:46.

Long Beach finished the game with its lowest shooting percentage, .273, in 51 games.

“I don’t want to take anything away from Columbus, but we had some good looks at the basket early and our shots just wouldn’t fall,” McHugh said.

“We didn’t rebound offensively very well, either, and then there were all the turnovers [28, almost a season high]. And with all that, we still came back and had the good run [Long Beach trimmed Columbus’ lead from 57-49 to 62-58 with 1:51 to play].”

Naturally, Columbus Coach Brian Agler had the opposite point of view.

“I was happy with our early intensity, but I’m not thrilled we let them back in it,” he said.

Griffith says her team is healthy enough.

“We’re all sick, but we’re strong enough to get this done,” she said. “And our focus is to get it done [Friday]. Now we know what to expect--that game last night was more like a fight than a basketball game.”

ABL Notes

Nashville is still the leading candidate for the next ABL expansion team, but St. Louis is moving up quickly, league officials say. One reason: Stanford’s Kristin Folkl, knocked out of the NCAA tournament because of a knee injury this week, is still seen as a top draft pick and she’s from St. Louis. Other expansion candidates are Long Island and the Tampa Bay area.

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Columbus vs. StingRays

Best of five

Long Beach leads series, 2-1

* Game 1: Long Beach 65, Columbus 62

* Game 2: Long Beach 71, Columbus 61

* Game 3: Columbus 70, Long Beach 61

* Today: at Columbus, 4 p.m.

* Sunday: at Columbus, 4 p.m.*

*--if necessary