SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Janelle Salaun scored 21 points off the bench, Gabby Williams contributed 19 points and five rebounds in her home debut for Golden State after the All-Star forward signed last month, and the Valkyries beat the Phoenix Mercury 95-79 on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Kayla Thornton also scored 19 and Veronica Burton added 13 points and 12 assists for the second-year Valkyries, who made history by becoming the first expansion franchise to reach the playoffs in its first season before losing to top-seeded Minnesota 75-74.<\/p>\n
Alyssa Thomas had 19 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds but committed six of the 17 turnovers for the Mercury, who completed a road back-to-back. They routed the defending champion Las Vegas Aces 99-66 on Saturday with Natasha Mack grabbing 15 rebounds \u2014 the largest road win in franchise history and a rematch of the 2025 WNBA Finals. Mack managed only two rebounds Sunday.<\/p>\n
Kiana Williams, a former Stanford star whose Hall of Fame college coach Tara VanDerveer was in attendance, made a 3-pointer with 8:03 left that pulled Phoenix within 73-68, and Thomas’ two free throws at the 7:34 mark made it 73-70.<\/p>\n
Then Salaun converted three free throws for Golden State with 5:43 to play before her layup the next time down made it 83-70. That delighted the sellout crowd at 18,064-capacity Chase Center, where the Valkyries sold out all 22 of their home games last year.<\/p>\n
The Valkyries received a rousing ovation from the home crowd shortly before tipoff when Burton spoke on the microphone to \u201cBallhalla,\u201d as it became known inside the arena in a play on Valhalla \u2014 which in Norse mythology is where Valkyries guide the souls of slain Warriors.<\/p>\n
Phoenix went ahead 7-0 before Golden State started the second quarter on a 21-6 burst to take a 38-26 lead and build a 48-31 advantage at intermission.<\/p>\n
Salaun shot 7 of 9 and made all four of her 3-point tries for a Golden State team missing Tiffany Hayes with a left pinky injury and Cecilia Zandalasini because of a concussion.<\/p>\n
Mercury: Host the Lynx on Tuesday night for their home opener.<\/p>\n
Valkryries: Host Chicago on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Janelle Salaun scored 21 points off the bench, Gabby Williams contributed 19 points and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[15447,41653,20631,32474,51379,274786,114699,114137,74976,74973,182715,251790,244602,99,143976,7631,60207,434],"class_list":["post-636126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-alyssa-thomas","tag-cecilia-zandalasini","tag-gabrielle-williams","tag-janelle-salaun","tag-kayla-thornton","tag-mercury-valkyries-score","tag-natasha-mack","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40774-ap-arizona-sports-only","tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","tag-sports","tag-tara-vanderveer","tag-tiffany-hayes","tag-veronica-burton","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}