SAN ANTONIO–After jumping ahead by double digits in the third quarter, the Storm was unable to hold onto the lead in the fourth as it fell to San Antonio 73-71 on Saturday night.

“Right now we are putting ourselves in a position to win games,” Storm head coach Jenny Boucek said. “It’s not an easy thing to do, especially on the road. We are not finishing the way that we want to.”

With the score tied at 42 in the third quarter, Sue Bird turned the corner and pulled up from about 12 feet to hit the jumper and put Seattle up by two. Crystal Langhorne and Jenna O’Hea were next as they both hit baskets to put the Storm on a 7-0 run and make it a 49-42 game.

Langhorne finished with a team-high 18 points on 8-for-9 from the field, nine rebounds, and three steals.

“That is what Lang does,” Bird said. “Lang has that ability to really be a force down low and to give us, whether it is points, rebounds, on any given night. She can easily get double-doubles, so tonight that was going and she did a great job.”

Seattle (2-6) stretched it out to a 12-0 run, which was capped by a three from Bird, to move ahead 54-42.

San Antonio (2-6) fired back with a run of its own and a 13-3 stretch cut the Storm lead to 59-57.

Seattle went on a quick 6-0 burst to start the fourth to take a 65-57 lead but then Kayla McBride started to bring the Stars back. She scored 14 of her game-high 23 points in the fourth and her jumper with 4:38 left cut the lead to 69-67.

The Seattle offense struggled to get a basket and San Antonio took advantage. With the game tied at 71 and San Antonio with the ball, it turned to McBride again and she hit a jumper on the drive to give the Stars a two-point lead with 22 seconds to go.

Seattle had a chance to tie it but Bird’s free throw line jumper was long.

“I think we generally play well for large portions of the game,” Bird said. “It is just about finishing off games and knowing what that feels like and as a group developing an identity when it comes to that.”

The Storm will not have long to rest as it will travel to Tulsa to play the second of a back-to-back stretch against the Shock on Sunday at 4 p.m.

“We have just got to bounce back,” Langhorne said. “We have got to be resilient. This was tough. This was a hard loss today. We have another game tomorrow, so all we can do is focus on Tulsa.”

Already leading 17-15 in the first quarter, the Storm was able to string a few straight baskets as it attacked the bucket to come up with three straight layups, capped by a reverse layup from Alysha Clark, to go up 23-15.

San Antonio began to chip away and used an 8-2 run to cut the lead to 25-23. The Stars jumped ahead by two on a pair of free throws from Danielle Robinson, making the score 35-33, but the lead was short lived.

Two possessions later, Langhorne cleaned up an offensive rebound and was fouled. She hit a pair of free throws to tie it back up and then Renee Montgomery drilled a three with 52 seconds left in the half to move Seattle back in front 38-35.

The Storm led 40-38 at the half.

NOTES

Sue Bird finished with 14 points and seven assists… Ramu Tokashiki made her first career start on Saturday and finished with a career-high 14 points… Seattle scored 40 points and shot 53.1 percent in the first half… The Storm had 11 assists on their 17 made shots in the first half.