Unstoppable Prince puts on amazing show for Sky

Back in high school, Brooklyn native Epiphanny Prince set the national prep record by scoring 113 points in a single basketball game.

She then went on to Rutgers where she led her team to a come-from-behind victory over perennial power Connecticut by scoring “27 or 28 points” (she can't remember exactly) in the second half alone.

Clearly, Prince, now the starting shooting guard for the Chicago Sky, has had some magical moments over the course of her career. But none have been more Disney-like with her wearing a Sky uniform than Friday's spectacular outburst against the Washington Mystics.

Prince was unguardable down the stretch, scoring 16 of her career- and game-high 31 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Sky to a wipe-your-brow-in-relief, 65-63 victory in front of 4,078 overjoyed fans at Allstate Arena.

The victory, which was sealed in equally spectacular fashion on a turnaround jumper in the lane by Sylvia Fowles off an inbounds pass with just 0.2 seconds remaining, moves the Sky to 3-1 on the season. Washington drops to 1-3.

“This means a lot,” said the soft-spoken Prince, who drained 6-of-7 three-pointers. “Last year at this time, if we would have played this type of game, we would have just folded and we would have come in here (into the locker room) like sad little puppies. But today we fought. We showed a lot of character out there.”

The stage was certainly set for the sad little puppies.

The Sky went down by 8 points with just 2:16 remaining after Mystics guard Natasha Lacy hit a jumper.

“It looked like we were in quicksand at some points there,” Sky coach Pokey Chatman said. “We could have thrown in the towel, but it was nice to see some grit.”

Prince dug down the deepest over the next couple possessions, hitting back-to-back 3-pointers and topping it off with a steal and layup as part of an 8-2 run that cut the deficit to just 2 points with 1:05 left.

But the Mystics then unexpectedly silenced the crowd when Matee Ajavon knifed her way to the basket, converted and then also drew a foul. Her free throw gave Washington a 5-point lead with 46.3 seconds remaining.

Prince wasn't done yet, though. She hit another 3-pointer on the next possession. Then, just seconds later, Sky center Ruth Riley, playing in front of her college coach, Notre Dame's Muffet McGraw, came up with a steal, got fouled and made both free throws to tie the game at 63 with 25.8 seconds left.

A Mystics shot-clock violation on the next possession set the stage for Fowles' last-second heroics in the lane.

“I was just thinking, ‘Give a big target, get the ball, take my time and focus,' and it went in,” said Fowles, who notched her fourth double-double in as many games with 19 points and 16 rebounds. “It was so great. This is definitely one of those games you can go back to when you need to dig it out. We showed character tonight and we also showed a lot of teamwork.”