After dropping their season opener on Friday, the Toronto Tempo were eager to defend home court against Seattle Wednesday night. It was their second-ever game, but the last before heading out on a four-game road trip. Win, and you leave your fans something to celebrate with while you’re gone. Lose, and you risk coming back from the first road trip with an 0-6 record.
The Tempo don’t have to think about the latter, getting their first win 86-73 over the Seattle Storm despite being down two key players. While the game was close throughout, the Tempo were able to build a 10-point game late in the fourth quarter, and defended well to keep the Storm at bay through the end.
“It was a good game for us,” head coach Sandy Brondello said after the victory. “[Game one] was very clunky.”
It seemed like the first-game nerves had fizzled out, leaving the Tempo with more confidence. There were challenges to overcome, of course, mainly the team’s lack of size against one of the best post-players in the WNBA – Seattle’s Dom Malonga. With Isabelle Harrison and Temi Fagbenle, two of the Tempo’s post-players out with injury, Nyara Sabally (who Toronto picked up from New York in the expansion draft) stepped up.
Another player the Tempo leaned on in the win was Maria Conde, a tall wing whose debut in the WNBA has been anticipated for years. Said to be “the best European player to have never played in the WNBA” by multiple people including Brondello, Conde is revered among players who spend their winters hooping overseas for her tough defence and gritty play.
“She got off the plane and started playing out of position,” Brondello said about Conde, who arrived late to camp after her season in Italy finished. “She said ‘Coach, I’ll do whatever you want. I love those players.”
As the first player off the bench, Conde played 29 minutes on Wednesday night, scoring 16 points, grabbing eight rebounds along with one steal, and ending the game with a plus-11 net rating.
“[Conde] just plays so hard,” Brondello continued.
“The other night we were sad we couldn’t get the win for the fans,” Conde said after the game. “Tonight was just special, first win for coach, for the team, for the country. We just gotta keep building on this.”
It was the first game in franchise history on Friday, but also the first WNBA game ever for the Tempo’s rookie Kiki Rice. After winning an NCAA championship with UCLA in early April, Rice seemed to struggle in her first professional match, and didn’t get any points on the board. Her leap on Wednesday is another improvement to add to the Tempo’s list.
Rice came out in her second appearance as a professional and scored 12 points off the bench, with two rebounds, one assist, and 5-for-9 shooting from the field.
“She’s a mentally tough player,” Brondello said about the No. 6 pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft, the Tempo’s first. “She doesn’t get down – we all have our moments, don’t we? She knows who she is.”
The best performance of the night, though, came from Marina Mabrey. She surpassed 25 points for the second game in a row, finishing with 26 along with four rebounds, three assists and four steals to lead the Tempo to their first franchise win.
“Marina, she’s a sniper,” Brondello laughed at the podium, soaking wet after getting a celebratory water shower from her players. “She’s one of the best shots in this league. It helps having that player that everyone has to guard.”
Overall, Brondello was happy the team had better running habits in this second game. After there was a bit of miscommunication in Friday’s opener, she encouraged her team in practice this week to have more trust in each other. Team chemistry is something that needs to be built, and putting an expansion team together in just a few weeks makes that a challenge.
The progress from the first game to the second shows that the process is working, and the team is learning each other’s habits.
Getting that first franchise win in front of the home crowd in Toronto was a celebratory moment for the entire franchise. They will now head out west to play back-to-back games against the Los Angeles Sparks before making stops in Phoenix and Minnesota. Their next home game is Saturday, May 23 against the Portland Fire.
“I love the road,” Brondello said when asked about the upcoming trip. “These players get to bond a little bit more, to get to know each other.
“It’s an opportunity for us to grow and face adversity, and we will,” she continued, “but it shows the character of the team and how we respond to that. It’s going to be hard; we are facing some tough teams, but it will be a great challenge for us.”
