Arike Ogunbowale racked up 24 points and hit six of her nine 3-pointers as the Dallas Wings rolled to a 94-68 victory over the visiting Indiana Fever on Thursday in Arlington, Texas.
Dallas (9-9) never trailed, leading by 15 points after the first quarter, by 17 at halftime and by as many as 25 in the third period before cruising to the finish line.
The Wings won for the third time in their past four games and captured their third straight home contest after taking just one of their first six meetings on their home court.
Isabelle Harrison added 16 points, and Teaira McCowan tallied 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Wings.
Kelsey Mitchell led the Fever (5-14) with 22 points, while Queen Egbo had 12 points and 12 rebounds.
Victoria Vivians went for 10 points as Indiana came back down to earth with a thud after upsetting Chicago at home on Sunday.
The Wings jumped out to a lead in the opening minutes and never looked back, scoring the game’s first five points, and going up 31-12 on a layup by Awak Kuier with 1:04 to play in the opening period.
Indiana trimmed the deficit to 40-28 on Egbo’s putback layup at the 5:13 mark of the second period before Dallas reeled off the ensuing seven points to push its lead back to 19.
The Wings settled for a 55-38 advantage at the break.
Ogunbowale paced all scorers with 16 points in the half, 13 of them in the first quarter, as Dallas outshot the Fever 50 percent to 41.7 percent over the first two quarters and forced nine Indiana turnovers.
Mitchell led the Fever with 14 points before halftime, while Egbo added 10. Those two players combined to shoot 9 of 15 in the half while the other seven Indiana players that saw the court in the half were just 6 of 21 from the floor.
Dallas upped its lead to 24 points after Ogunbowale’s 3-pointer with 2:59 to play in the third quarter and to 76-51 on Tyasha Harris’ two free throws with 36.8 seconds left before taking a 22-point advantage into the fourth.
–Field Level Media