Greco, Storm capture crown

Edgar Melik-Stepanyan

Michelle Greco can now call herself a champion.

The 1998 Crescenta Valley High graduate was on the court when the

Seattle Storm captured the 2004 WNBA championship Tuesday night.

Greco played the final minute of the Storm’s 74-60 victory against

the Connecticut Sun at Key Arena in the third game of the finals.

Betty Lennox, who scored 23 points in the third game after scoring 27

in Game Two, was chosen the most valuable player of the finals.

The Storm became the fourth team to win a championship in the

WNBA’s eight-year history.

The Houston Comets won the first four championships. The Los

Angeles Sparks captured the title in 2001 and 2002, before the

Detroit Shock won it last season.

Greco didn’t record any stats in her only action of the finals.

The Storm lost to the Sun, 68-64, in the first game, but came back to

win the second game, 67-65, when Connecticut’s Nykesha Sales missed a

potential game-winning, three-pointer at the buzzer.

Greco signed with Seattle as a free agent in April after a brief

stay in the Hellenic Basketball Federation. Greco played in the

Basketall Assn. of Israel a month before joining the Hellenic

Basketball Federation.

Greco played 13 games this season, averaging 5.6 minutes and

scoring 2.2 points per contest.

As a senior at CV, Greco was the co-captain of the Under-19 United

States team that won gold at the World Championships. She was named

to the All-World Championship team.

While at CV -- where she holds the school record with 2,397 career

points -- Greco was the Cal-Hi State Player of the Year four times.