WASHINGTON, D.C.–The Storm had finished the first half of the season having taken two of three and aimed to carry that momentum into Wednesday afternoon but fell behind early was, despite a push in the third, was unable to recover as it lost to Washington 87-74.

“Very disappointed with the start of the game especially defensively, so that put us in a huge hole,” Storm head coach Jenny Boucek said. “Thought we did a decent job of regaining our composure, playing more like we want to play but it was a rough start for us.”

The Storm fell behind by 20 after the first and slowly began to chip away.

Seattle tried to keep it close in the second, where Crystal Langhorne scored seven of her nine first half points. A pair of free throws from Markeisha Gatling at the end of the half cut the lead down to 16.

The Seattle defense stepped up and held the Mystics to 38.1 percent from the field in the second.

Seattle came out in the third and quickly made a game of it. Tokashiki drove to the basket and connected on the scooping layup to cut the lead to 16 and then hit a running bank shot to make it 55-41.

Following a Washington timeout, Alysha Clark found Sue BIrd on the left wing for the three and the Storm were within 11.

The Mystics responded with a 10-1 run to push the advantage back to 20 and went back up by as much as 24. But the Storm had one final push in the fourth and rode Abby Bishop and Quantira Hollingsworth for a 12-0 run to cut the Washington lead to nine.

Bishop finished one point short of tying her career-high with 17 on 6-for-12 from the field.

It marks the beginning of a six-game road trip for Seattle and it will continue on Friday when it takes on Connecticut at 4 p.m. PT.

“For us it’s just about taking one game at a time but also learning from each game and we know that playing on the road is obviously a lot tougher than playing at home so it’s important for us to get good starts,” Bishop said. “I think that’s going to be the really big focus for the next game is having a good start and that’s everyone and it starts from the warmup, it starts from everything, so that’s going to be really important for us for these next 5 games.”

The Storm were slow out the gates against Washington, which came in having won three straight.

Ramu Tokashiki hit a jumper from the baseline to cut the Washington lead to 12-8 in the first. That is when the Mystics bench made its presence known.

After five straight points from Stephanie Dolson, Ivory Latta hit a three to bump the Washington lead to 20-8. She hit a pair of free throws on the next possession and then buried another trey to go up by 17.

Latta had eight points of the 17 points that came from Washington’s bench in the first and 11 in the half off the bench.

It was part of an 18-2 run that gave Washington a 30-10 lead in the first. The Mystics shot 72.2 percent from the field in the opening period.

“Winning on the road is extremely difficult and one of the most important things about it is your start,” Boucek said. “The Mystics are very talented offensively, they got a lot of very good offensive weapons and when we let an offensive team like that get comfortable and confident it’s hard to slow them down. We let them get very confident right off the bat and so that was an uphill battle.”