The Portland Fire\u2019s roster doesn\u2019t include many big-name WNBA players.<\/p>\n
One of two expansion teams to join the league this season, their roster is headlined by strong role players like Bridget Carleton<\/a>, Carle Leite, and Emily Engslter, players who have never been primary options in the WNBA, and fought tooth and nail to make it.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n But on Tuesday night in Portland, as streamers inundated the stands, the roster\u2019s relative name recognition didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n Thanks to a Sarah Ashlee-Barker game-winning putback layup, the Fire defeated the New York Liberty<\/a> 98-96, toppling a veteran squad that boasts stars like Breanna Stewart<\/a> and Jonquel Jones<\/a>.<\/p>\n Important disclaimer: the Liberty have not been healthy to begin the season; two of their most important players \u2014 Sabrina Ionescu<\/a> and Satou Sabally<\/a> \u2014 are both sidelined. Still, few would have predicted that the Fire, who fell to the Chicago Sky on opening night, would come away with their first win of the season on Tuesday against.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Bridget Carleton did everything she could to ensure it would happen. The 28-year-old was selected No. 1 overall in the expansion draft, and subsequently signed a 3-year, $3.75 million maximum contract.<\/p>\n Some scoffed at the size of that deal \u2014 she\u2019d never before averaged double-figures, and while she was a strong role player for the Minnesota Lynx<\/a>, she appeared to be just that: a role player.<\/p>\n But, in Tuesday\u2019s win, the Fire\u2019s Carleton vision came to fruition. The Canadian sharpshooter tallied a career-high 26 points on 9-16 shooting, hitting 5 of 11 three-point attempts, while also racking up 4 steals. In her 33 minutes on the floor, the Fire outscored the Liberty by 12 points.<\/p>\n But the victory was far more than just Carleton\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The 22-year-old Carla Leite<\/a> appears to be a rising star of her own. Leite showed flashes of potential in her rookie season on the Golden State Valkyries<\/a>, but is already seeing more opportunities in Portland. She led the way with 21 points in the season opener, and followed that up with another 21-point performance on Tuesday, hitting 8 of 14 field goal attempts alongside 6 assists.<\/p>\n Leite\u2019s most pivotal play came with just 27 seconds to spare, when she blew past Jonquel Jones for a clutch-time layup to tie up the ball game.<\/p>\n Then, it was Sarah Ashlee-Barker who quickly became a franchise hero; the second-year forward corralled Carleton\u2019s missed three-point attempt, and beat the buzzer with the putback.<\/p>\n Immediately, Ashlee-Barker\u2019s teammates piled on top of her in celebration, while the fans at Moda Center went berserk.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n A Fire team that didn\u2019t even have players just a few months ago had toppled one of the most talented squads in the WNBA.<\/p>\n And, the fire they played with on Tuesday night suggested it just might be the first of many big-time victories in their inaugural season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Fire\u2019s roster doesn\u2019t include many big-name WNBA players. One of two expansion teams to join the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[435,49796,77719,276323,438,186866,4804,14400,1077,12079,436,2232,18223,12077,276324,3675,16808,99,13340,434,21995],"class_list":["post-639999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-bridget-carleton","tag-carla-leite","tag-carle-leite","tag-chicago-sky","tag-expansion-teams","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-jonquel-jones","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-moda-center","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-oregon","tag-portland","tag-portland-fire","tag-role-player","tag-sabrina-ionescu","tag-satou-sabally","tag-sports","tag-steph","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639999","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=639999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}