Photo Credit: Vicente Cardenas/The Paisano

In a rematch from last Sunday’s meeting between the San Antonio Silver Stars and the Seattle Storm, the Stars were on the wrong side of a 72-71 loss on Tuesday night in the AT&T Center.

Storm’s forward Trina Thompson rallied her team to a narrow victory on the back of her 27 points and 13 rebounds. Thompson, who is a 16-year WNBA veteran, scored 16 points in the first half.

The Storm seemed to have the game in hand with a seven-point lead in the final 20 seconds of the game. That was until Stars’ guard Shenise Johnson hit a 3-pointer with 7.5 seconds left to cut the lead to 72-68. Following a Storm timeout, Johnson stole the ball on a bad pass and pushed the ball up court finding an open Jia Perkins who hit a 3-pointer to bring them within one point. The Storm attempted to throw the ball in quickly but lost control and Perkins stole the ball heaving up a desperation shot falling out of bounds.

That is where things got strange. The ball missed badly but came down to Thompson who was fouled by Johnson making a play on the ball. While that was transpiring, the official clock had not started and the referees blew their whistles to sort out the mess. After a review, the referees concluded the action and foul would have taken the entire 1.7 seconds left in the game, therefore, ending the game and the Stars run.

“We fought back but Tina (Thompson) had an amazing game. She’s a great player and she’s going out in a big way but early on in the game she was the key factor,” Perkins said. “We just ran out of time.”

The Stars stayed in the game thanks to balanced scoring from four of their five starters. Perkins led the team with 17 points while Johnson pitched in 16 points and six rebounds. Danielle Adams added 13 points, and Davellyn Whyte, who started for injured guard Danielle Robinson, scored 14 points.

The Silver Stars have six games left to try and sneak into the last Western Conference playoff spot. Next up is a road game against the Tulsa Shock. The Stars have split the first two meetings with the Shock, winning back on Aug. 4 69-65, and then dropping a road loss 73-67 on Aug. 23. The game on Friday will be the first of the final two meetings between the teams this season. Tipoff is set for 7 pm in the BOK Center.