Young Washington Mystics on rise after road wins over Liberty and Lynx

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NEW YORK (AP) — The Washington Mystics have really grown on their recent road trip after suffering some tough lessons early in the season.

Washington has won three straight games on the road, including closing out victories late over New York and Minnesota.

“I think it takes time to get to where you want to go,” said Washington forward Kiki Iriafen, who scored the go-ahead basket in the wins over both the Liberty and Lynx. “And that’s something that our coaches have stressed to us. Like the first month of May was kind of hard having back to back losses and even this month, as well. But our coaches told us, like, playoff contending teams don’t happen in May.”

The three consecutive road wins — Washington also won at Connecticut last week — were the first time the team has done that since 2024. The victory at New York on Friday night snapped a 10-game regular season losing streak to the Liberty.

“You just want to get better each and every month. So kind of looking at the season as month to month to month rather than we lost X amount of games or we have this many more games to go," Iriafen said. "I think it’s just a comfortability. We’re all getting more comfortable with each other.”

Coach Sydney Johnson feels that his young team bought in during training camp by putting in the work to get better. The Mystics have the youngest roster in league history.

“I think it’s a combination that we understood we were fielding one of the youngest teams in the history of the league. At the same time, having really competitive players from winning programs,” Johnson said. “We also know that it’s really, really hard to win in this league. Really, really hard. And so we’ve learned some tough lessons, and we’re taking some of that learning and transferring it to future performances.”

Washington returns home to face Minnesota on Wednesday.

Las Vegas and Minnesota sit tied atop the power poll this week. The two teams were followed by Atlanta and New York. Dallas was fifth and Golden State sixth. Washington moved up four spots to seventh. Indiana, Los Angeles and Portland were next. Toronto, Phoenix and Chicago came after the Fire. Seattle and Connecticut rounded out the poll.

Sonia Citron of Washington was the AP player of the week. She averaged 21 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.7 assists to help the Mystics win their three games last week. Olivia Miles of Minnesota, Jordin Canada of Atlanta, Jessica Shepard of Dallas and Marina Mabrey of Toronto also received votes.

New York at Las Vegas, Tuesday. The Liberty and Aces will meet for the first time this season with the next matchup taking place in New York on June 30 with the Commissioner's Cup championship at stake. The Liberty have dropped their last two games, blowing fourth quarter leads in both contests. Las Vegas is coming in off a dominating win over Golden State.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball