By Caitlin Phelan
This week the women’s sports world featured the start of the Women’s National Basketball Association’s regular season, where numerous records have already been broken by players such as Brittney Griner and Breanna Stewart. We also saw the NCAA’s women’s softball regional tournament, where many shocking upsets happened, as well as the favorite, No. 1 Oklahoma, advancing to the Super Regionals that will take place this weekend. In golf, Wake Forest pulled off a stunning victory over USC, winning the college’s first ever NCAA women’s golf title.
Basketball:
The highly anticipated WNBA season has begun this week, and Brittney Griner made her long awaited return and competed in her first official WNBA game in 579 days on Friday, May 19, playing 25 minutes in the Phoenix Mercury’s 94-71 loss to the Los Angeles Sparks. Griner recorded 18 points, six rebounds and four blocked shots.
The eight-time WNBA All-Star also broke records last Friday when a staggering 683,000 people tuned in to the Mercury-Sparks opening night matchup, the most-viewed WNBA regular season game on cable in 24 years.
Breanna Stewart of the New York Liberty, who was traded from the Seattle Storm this past offseason, set a New York Liberty scoring record in her home debut, scoring 45 points. The record performance also marked the first time a WNBA player has scored 40 or more points in their home debut with a franchise. She also added a team-high 12 rebounds to secure the double-double in the 90-73 win against the Indiana Fever.
Tennis:
Last Tuesday, May 16, ESPN announced that a Serena Williams docuseries, titled “In the Arena: Serena Williams” will be coming to the network, where they will show her iconic career that spanned more than two decades. The docuseries will talk about the legacy and journey of the tennis superstar, as well as an in-depth look at each of her 23 Grand Slam victories.
Softball:
This week we saw the NCAA’s women’s softball regional tournament. Sixteen college softball teams remain after an exciting regional weekend, and only eight of them will advance to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City next week.
The current favorite, No.1 Oklahoma, dominated the regionals to extend its winning streak to 46 games, one shy of tying Arizona (1996-97) for the Division I record.
Golf:
Wake Forest beat University of Southern California for their first NCAA women’s golf title on May 24. Wake Forest’s Lauren Walsh closed out her match against Brianna Navarrosa with a conceded par on the 16th hole, and Wake Forest won its first women’s golf championship by beating USC 3-1 on Wednesday. Wake Forest lost to Duke in the 2019 national final, had a school-record five tournament wins this season with a veteran-led team.
This week, Stanford’s Rose Zhang became the first woman to win consecutive NCAA titles. Zhang now has won just about everything there is in amateur golf. With a perfect performance at the NCAA Championships, the Stanford sophomore now has done something no one else has: win back-to-back national titles. Zhang has also won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 2020, the U.S. Girls’ Junior in 2021 and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur last month.
Football:
Maya Ana Callender made history last week with the NFL’s New England Patriots, when she became the first woman hired as a full-time scout in the Patriots’ 64-year franchise history. She previously served as the director of operations at Princeton. Callander becomes now just the second woman to work in the Patriots’ scouting department, joining longtime director of administration Nancy Meier, who has been with the team since 1975. She also became the first woman to be hired for the Patriots under hall-of-fame coach, Bill Belichick.
