UNCASVILLE — The Connecticut Sun kept their undefeated streak alive despite a last-minute scare from the Dallas Wings, escaping with a 74-72 victory at Mohegan Sun Arena on Friday.

The Sun entered the fourth quarter with a nine-point lead, but Dallas found another gear to start the first four minutes on an 8-0 run that cut the deficit to a single point. Back-to-back fouls against superstar forward Alyssa Thomas made it a two-score game again, but the Wings responded again with a 3-pointer from Sevgi Uzun in the final minute that put them up 72-71.

Thomas put Connecticut back in front on a short jump shot with just under 40 seconds to play, and a 3-point attempt by Wings star Arike Ogunbowale rimmed out with 22 seconds remaining. Thomas grabbed the rebound and was fouled, but she missed both free throws to give Dallas one last opportunity. Tyasha Harris recovered the game-securing rebound off a miss from Uzun and made a free throw for the final two-point margin of victory.

“It’s really just more of the same: Proud of our team for finding a way, you know? It’s not been pretty, but we’ve we’ve been able to find ways to win ballgames and that’s what it takes in this league,” Sun coach Stephanie White said. “We have to figure out why we’re not starting well. We’ve got to be able to maintain momentum, but we found a way to pull it out and, and I’m proud of our group for continuing to do that and multiple people making big plays down the stretch.”

Another one for AT.

Alyssa Thomas is the Ultra Premium Shot of the game presented by @Casamigos. pic.twitter.com/HD3flqSFtt

— Connecticut Sun (@ConnecticutSun) June 1, 2024

The Sun (7-0) floundered in the opening minutes, starting 0-for-4 from the field as the Wings (3-3) opened up an 11-point lead. All-Star center Brionna Jones struggled to contain 6-foot-7 Teaira McCowan defensively, and she led the Wings in scoring after the first quarter with eight points. Connecticut’s entire starting lineup came out sluggish, all five entering the second quarter with a negative plus-minus. Meanwhile, all four bench players who saw the floor ended the first in the positives.

Thomas was uncharacteristically inefficient in the first quarter shooting 1-for-5 from the field, but she got back to her regular production in the second. Thomas was well on her way to a triple-double at halftime with seven points, six assists and five rebounds, and the 2023 MVP runner-up finished just a single rebound shy of the line. She ended with 15 points, a season-high 14 assists and nine rebounds plus two steals.

“They kept leaving Breezy and just letting her have the jump shot,” said Thomas, who made nine of her assists to Jones. “So credit to my teammates. We knew they were a team that like over-helping (on defense), so I just kind of found a lot of openings … It’s always great when you can have a night like this, but none of it’s possible without my teammates.”

Tiffany Mitchell had arguably her best performance in a Sun uniform, leading the team with five points after the first quarter. Mitchell drained a buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of the first that palpably shifted the momentum for Connecticut, cutting the deficit to a single score entering the second. She was also an anchor for the defensive effort with a team-high three steals.

TIFF 👏 pic.twitter.com/KSIKYLQXet

— Connecticut Sun (@ConnecticutSun) May 31, 2024

The Sun entered halftime up 40-34 after an 11-0 run in the second quarter gave them their first lead of the game. DeWanna Bonner carried the momentum into the third, scoring four points in under a minute to become the first Connecticut player in double digits. Bonner ended with her least-efficient performance of the season shooting 5-for-13 but still logged 12 points, four rebounds and two assists.

Connecticut fared far better in the second half against McCowan, holding the Wings center to just two points. Olivia Nelson-Ododa was impressive off the bench against the sixth-year veteran, holding her scoreless in nine minutes on the floor while logging two boards and a steal. Jones, who is still on limited playing time recovering from an ACL rupture, finished with a season-high 22 points plus four rebounds in 30 minutes.

“It’s great to see breezy out there … but again, we’ve got to be smarter,” White said. “My hope was to not have to get to 30 tonight. It was to stay around that 25, but the game called for it … I think she looks confident. She’s really back in a rhythm, and it’s just it’s nice to see her out there. You forget just how many things she does on the floor for you and just how nice and what a luxury is to have her back on the floor.”

Ogunbowale led Dallas with 21 points, just one point better than her season low. The All-Star guard powered the Wings down the stat sheet too with seven assists, four rebounds and two steals, but she shot just 8-for-21 from the field. Maddy Siegrist was Dallas’s most efficient player on offense with 17 points on 8-for-8 from the field, though she also picked up five fouls.

“Look, you’re not going to stop a player like Arike. The thing that you want to try to do is make every shot tough, and then you’ve got to live with tough shots,” White said. “It seemed like every time we got the ball out of Arike’s hands in that early fourth quarter, somebody on their team made a big shot, and that’s just a credit to them. Like I said, they’re good teams in this league, and sometimes you got to you got to play the odds … We just made some tough defensive plays down the stretch that saved the game for us.”

UNCASVILLE — The last time Lou Lopez-Senechal played a basketball game at Mohegan Sun Arena, on March 6, 2023, she scored 14 points on 62.5% shooting to help the UConn women’s basketball team win its 21st Big East championship and earn all-tournament honors.

On Friday, nearly 15 months later, Lopez-Senechal returned to the state she called home for five years in college to face the Connecticut Sun in what is her rookie WNBA season with the Dallas Wings. Dallas selected her with the No. 5 overall pick in 2023 but she underwent season-ending knee surgery shortly after the WNBA Draft to repair a lingering injury suffered at UConn.

“It took longer than we thought it would, but I also tried not to rush anything,” Lopez-Senechal said. “I knew that it was the beginning of my professional career, so I didn’t want to rush anything or take the wrong steps, so I really took it seriously … Even on the sideline (last year), I was trying to really be involved with the team as much as possible, listen to them, learn … and I think it made me feel a bit better now coming back to Dallas and knowing who I was surrounded with.”

Lopez-Senechal played for four years at Fairfield before transferring to UConn in 2022-23, and the 6-foot-1 guard made an immediate impact in her lone season with the Huskies. She earned first-team All-Big East honors averaging 15.5 points and 3.1 rebounds per game, also leading UConn in 3-point shooting, hitting 44%. But because recovery from surgery took longer than Lopez-Senechal expected, she wasn’t able to work out at full speed until early October.

Lopez-Senechal spent the last seven months playing overseas to ease back into the grind of competition, first with Zabiny Brno in the Czech Republic, then with Spanish squad Jairis. Her development showed over just 21 combined games in the international leagues. She averaged 9.8 points but hit just just 18.2% from 3-point range in eight games for Zabiny Brno, and that improved to 10.8 points on 44.2% outside shooting with Jairis.

“I went first to the Czech Republic, and then switched to a team in Spain, and that ended up being really good. I loved playing in Spain because it’s some of the best competition in Europe,” she said. “It was just trying to get my rhythm back and get playing again. This was the first time for me that I had that type of injury where I had to take a step back for a long time, so I was just grateful to be back on the court with new teammates, a new team. It was a great experience.”

Her biggest challenge returning to the Wings was a late start to training camp. Lopez-Senechal’s Jairis team was competing in the Spanish Liga Feminina playoffs until losing in the quarterfinals on April 28 — the same day WNBA teams reported to begin official practices. She joined Dallas on May 3 and made her first game appearance for the team in an 87-79 win over the Chicago Sky on May 15.

“Definitely the pace is so much faster; I noticed that last year already,” Lopez-Senechal said. “And then the experience of the players, you play against players that have been here for 10-plus years and know the game almost perfectly. There’s definitely an adjustment being new to all of that … but I think there’s always an adjustment for everyone. It takes some time, but those are definitely the biggest factors that I need to adjust to.”

On a young Wings roster, Lopez-Senechal plays alongside several familiar faces from her college days: Big East rival Maddy Siegrist, the former Villanova star, was drafted alongside Lopez-Senechal at No. 3 last year. Also rookie guard Jacy Sheldon who helped upset her UConn team in the 2023 Sweet 16 to give the Huskies their earliest NCAA Tournament exit since 2005. Senechal said Siegrist has become a close friend since they were drafted together and described the second-year forward as one of her biggest supporters during her injury recovery.

“I had a feeling (playing with Siegrist) was going to go well, because she’s a really good competitor. She loves to win,” Lopez-Senechal said with a smile. “I saw that when we played against her at UConn, and she has a great personality. She’s so funny. It’s weird at first when you see players that you played against — even Jacy this year — but at the end of the day we all love the game, and I think it’s always cool and really fun to eventually be able to play together.”

A slew of friends in Connecticut, including a former Fairfield teammates, are making the trip down to Uncasville to see Lopez-Senechal on Friday, though she said she’s not sure whether the UConn team will be able to attend amid the start of summer classes and practice in Storrs. It will be a week full of reunions for the former Husky, who will also get to see UConn classmate Dorka Juhasz on Sunday when the Wings face her Minnesota Lynx in Minneapolis. The pair have remained “like sisters” since graduating, and they met up in Italy during the WNBA offseason where Juhasz was playing for Schio in the Serie A1 league.

“She’s been my best friend since UConn, since the draft, and we’ve had a very similar journey, so I think that we really understand each other,” Lopez-Senechal said. “Even during the summer last year in the league, whenever we played each other it’s exciting to see each other and then overseas we saw each other a couple of times, so it’s been great. We’ve been helping each other through a lot of things, and she’s a great support, a great friend, so I’m so happy to see her again this summer soon.”

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