Sparks in the House

Sparks fall short in their final tuneup against the San Antonio Silver Stars losing 86-77.

Box Score – Los Angeles Sparks

Saturday brought a pre mother’s day celebration to Long Beach as the LA Sparks hosted the San Antonio Silvers Stars at the Walter Pyramid. This was a special day for many local women’s basketball fans as the Sparks brought with them a former 49er star in Karina Figueroa. Well, former maybe a stretch since she was just playing for The Beach a couple of months ago and the spring semester is still on-going. Karina logged in 10 minutes and grabbed 2 rebounds playing out her dream. This week should bring news if she has made the final cut or not, but I am sure plenty of memories were made along the way.

Guard Marie Ferdinand-Harris led the way for the Sparks scoring 13 points, while fellow teammate DeLisha Milton-Jones (forward) chipped in 11 and grabbed 5 rebounds.  The Silver Stars’ leading scorer was Belinda Snell who knocked down 17 points.

The following images were taken during the game:

Images can be found at Ballin’ at Da Beach – Facebook – Flickr

Quotes from the game:

“Unfortunately, I missed a few shots,” Karina Figueroa said. “Trust me, I wanted to make them.”

“You hate losing games,” Coach Gillom said. “But, you have to realize that this is an exhibition game, and you can’t show a lot of stuff that you want to do in order to come back.”

“These are some things that we wanted to see, what we needed to work on,” Coach Gillom said. “We have a week to clean it up and get Candace back in the lineup, which is definitely going to help us to get our game plan together and put everything in that we need to put in.”

“In the fourth quarter, I felt like all they did was shoot free throws,” Ticha Penicheiro said. “It was really lopsided and we couldn’t get anything going on the break because we kept fouling and putting them on the line.  Bottom line, it’s a preseason game. Coach is looking at players and we’re all just trying to gel, so we can’t really make a big deal out of winning or losing and just continue to take steps forward.”

“I’m trying to be a team player and do the little things,” Figueroa said. “Whether it’s boxing out, even though I might not get the rebound, but getting in the right position, fighting through screens and getting loose balls.”

Coach Gillon speaking on making cuts, “That’s probably the toughest part right now,” she said.  “The players who do really well in practice seem nervous in the games, and don’t have a great performance.  The players who aren’t practicing as well are having good games, so it’s hard.  [ Karina's] a great practice player—I love her attitude.  Her passion for the game, her basketball IQ, you can’t coach that.”