{"id":900086,"date":"2026-09-18T05:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T05:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/900086\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T05:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T05:54:16","slug":"shakira-austin-kiki-iraifen-lift-washington-mystics-over-chicago-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/900086\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakira Austin, Kiki Iraifen lift Washington Mystics over Chicago Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Shakira Austin scored 20 points, Kiki Iriafen finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds, and the Washington Mystics beat the Chicago Sky 110-80 on Thursday night in their first game since the FIBA World Cup break. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Mystics (25-16), tied with Dallas for sixth in the WNBA standings, moved a half-game ahead of New York. The top four have home court advantage in the best-of-three first round of the playoffs, which begin Sept. 27. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Courtney Vandersloot led Chicago with 14 points and Sydney Taylor scored 12. Kamilla Cardoso and Gabriela Jaquez each added 10 points. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Iriafen, who had her 21st double-double this season, grabbed four offensive rebounds to set a franchise single-season record with 115. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Austin made a layup in the opening minute to break Washington\u2019s single-season scoring record. The 6-foot-5 center went into the game with 657 points this season, which tied the previous mark set by Sonia Citron in 2025. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Georgia Amoore and Michaela Onyenwere added 12 points apiece and Cotie McMahon scored 11 for the Mystics. Citron (personal reasons) did not play. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Sky (15-26) have lost four in a row following a season-high three consecutive wins. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">DiJonai Carrington (foot) did not play for Chicago. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Up next <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Mystics: Play Sunday at Indiana. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Sky: Visit Atlanta on Saturday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\n                See AP\u2019s full WNBA coverage here\n              <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Shakira Austin scored 20 points, Kiki Iriafen finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds, and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-900086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}