The climate was falling. You can t...

The climate was falling. You can take that from forward Candice Dupree whose 19-point performance and her bustle of baskets at the close of both halves spurred the team to its fourth victory in 26 games.

"We destitutioned this bad," she said. "Team morale was starting to least bit a little bit."

in like manner was a 17-point halftime lead against the Minnesota Lynx who threatened to rally nevertheless fell short in a 79-65 los Friday night at the UIC Pavilion.

The weather featured a more-tenacious defense than the expansion WNBA team has shown at times, and its work ethic was promising.

No undivided would have guessed there would be this kind of energetic output from a team that got up at 5 a.m. Friday in Washington, had its United flight back to Chicago canceled and then was shoehorned standby in succession a flight that arrived in the late morning.

"We imagination we were going to be in Washington all day," coach Dave Cowens said. "It was a religious end to a day that started like that. Our defense carried us the whole night. We contained and stayed with the game plan."

The firmament took an 8-0 lead before the Lynx knew what had hit them, storming revealed front with the help of four consecutive turnovers. Bernadette Ngoysia benefitted from the Sky's ability to cast its defense into penetration forward offense. The Lynx were back in succession their heels and were held to 419 percent field-goal shooting in the first half.

Ngoysia had couple layups and Dupree a basket that raised the lead to 10-2 Dupree was just warming up She took through late in the opening half, scoring the final seven points.

Cowens smartly called for a timeout with 174 inferiors left in the first half to establish up a play. It was execut to perfection as Dupree scored to give the canopy of heaven a 17-point bulge at halftime. Dupree ignited a fast break with a steal and finished from rebounding a teammate's miss and putting it back in for a basket.

"I was just trying to repurchase myself after last night's game [in Washington]," Dupree said.

Stacey Dales' first-half activity seemed contagious. Two three- pointers by way of Dales gave the Sky a 21-11 lead. In all, Dales would hit four three-pointers in the first half, the last of them putting the celestial expanse up 39-21 lead.

Cowens praised Dales, who l the celestial expanse with 20 points, for knocking down a three-pointer in the third quarter to abrupt a comeback by the Lynx

"We were stuck in the mire and couldn't score and she knocked single in kind down," Cowens said. "That was a gusty shot"

mkiley@suntimes.com

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