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Clark's sharpshooting abilities made her
appointment viewing in the final year of her collegiate career,
and a sold-out crowd piled into Mohegan Sun Arena to watch her
first regular-season game in the professional ranks.
But the Sun refused to let the six-foot guard steal the show, as
DiJonai Carrington clobbered Clark on defense, Alyssa Thomas
recorded her ninth career triple double and Bonner became the
league's fifth all-time scorer with a third-quarter layup.
"This is what they expect from me every night, whether it's
Caitlin or whether it's whoever we're playing," Carrington said.
"This is the standard."
Last year's unanimous Rookie of the Year, Aliyah Boston, kicked
off the action with a two-pointer off an assist from Clark, but
the Sun wrested the momentum quickly as guard Tyasha Harris put
up a trio of threes in the first quarter.
Clark, who had 20 points with 10 turnovers across the game,
struggled early and was unable to get on the board until a layup
off a steal nearly halfway through the second quarter, prompting
wild cheers from the crowd.
"I didn't have the greatest start," Clark told reporters. "It's
the first one - there's going to be good ones, there's going to
be bad ones."
She drained her first of four three-pointers with seconds left
in the half, but the Fever trailed the Sun by 10 points going
into the locker room and could never catch up with clumsy
mistakes leading to 25 turnovers.
"They punched us in the mouth tonight," Fever coach Christie
Sides told reporters. "We've got to figure out what we did
tonight that we could do better."
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in Uncasville, Connecticut; Additional
reporting by Hussein Waaile; Editing by Sonali Paul and Jamie
Freed) [© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
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