WNBA All-Stars -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

WNBA All-Star Game

One Cardinal was in action on hardwood yesterday.  Angel McCoughtry was in Minneapolis for the WNBA All-Star Game, where she was selected as a starter on Candace Parker's team.

Team Parker came away the win, 119-112 in a good second half of play.  Team Della Donne, captained by Elena Della Donne, held a 54-50 lead at halftime.  Angel stated 10 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists in the game.  The MVP went, understandably, to Maya Moore, who picked up 18 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, and a steal in the competition.

The first half was a whole lot of showboating, and, let's be honest, not very good quality basketball.  In the second half, you could tell that the innate competitiveness of these players took over and it started getting to be a somewhat serious game.

Liz Cambage, in the waning seconds of the game, demonstrated her ability to dunk the ball, pushing the 3 point lead out to the final 5 point margin.

Maybe the most gripping competitive action was during halftime during the 3-point shooting
competition.  Allie Quigley, going last in the preliminary round, got the second most points, meaning she took another round, right after, in the "Final Round", with Kayla McBride, having the highest score in the preliminary round, getting the advantage of knowing the mark she needed to beat.  McBride wasn't able to best Quigley, though, with both scoring 18 of the potential 34 points (16 1-point regular balls, 9 2-point "money" balls).  The shoot-off round was all Quigley, though.  She came out and absolutely torched the net, scoring 29 points, including hitting every one of the "money" balls in the money ball rack that she had placed at the right shoulder location.  McBride did well in her round, but came up short with 21 points.

The WNBA returns to regular season action Tuesday, when Myisha Hines-Allen with the Washington Mystics will visit Atlanta to play the Dream and Angel McCoughtry.

Swimming Nationals

Information about the US Swimming Open Nationals is a little hard to correlate.  Here's what I'm sure of.

Kelsi Dahlia nee Worrell won both the 50 and 100 Fly events to punch her ticket to the Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo.  She finished the 50 by tying her own American record at 25.48, and boarded a 56.48 in the 100 Fly.

Mallory Comerford will also be making the trip.  She finished 2nd in the 100 Free behind Simone Manuel.  Comerford made the two trips up and down the pool in 53.09, with Manuel finishing out in 52.54.

Zach Harting finished in 2nd place in the 200 Fly to earn the trip to the land of the rising sun, finishing with a 1:55.11.

My understanding is that there is another Cardinal who has qualified for the Pan Pacs, but I haven't been able to find out who and in what event that is.  I suspect once the full event wraps up this evening, we'll get an update from UofL on relevant results.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

We're still looking for a perfect outing for the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour.  We had all four of us knuckleheads back in the studio this week, which was great, but a couple of flubs by yours truly on the technical side has us still looking for that perfect game.

Enjoy the fun at the Facebook Live link at https://www.facebook.com/WCHQfm/videos/2135176659838939/

and pardon the audio dropouts in a few spots.

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JMcA