Three WNBA players ejected after fiery Sun-Sky scrap
A trio of WNBA players earned the boot Wednesday night following an altercation during the Sun's 71-62 home win over the Sky.
Connecticut's Bria Harley and Chicago's Rebecca Allen each received ejections for starting the scuffle, while the Sky's Ariel Atkins' night ended early 'for being an escalator' after shoving Hartley and touching a referee, according to crew chief Angelia Suffern as reported by ESPN.
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5 Hartley (yellow shoes) shoves Allen (blue jersey).
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5 Allen hits the ground with Hartley above her.
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The situation unfolded early in the second quarter when the Sun's Saniya Rivers and Hartley battled Allen for a rebound, which the former corralled.
Hartley and Allen tangled arms and in the battle for the ball, Hartley seemingly shoved Allen to the floor.
Allen attempted to grab Hartley as she fell before later taking a hold of her jersey for several seconds while her opponent stood over her.
5 Atkins (7) approaches Hartley and hits the ref.
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Players from both sides eventually made their way over, with Atkins running full steam into a referee while she attempted to confront Hartley.
While said referee attempted to distance Atkins from Harley, she nudged the official.
Atkins and Hartley then yelled at one another as the tensions started to calm down.
5 Atkins nudgets the referee.
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The skirmish reportedly stopped play for roughly 10 minutes.
Hartley and Allen both did not score in their 10 minutes before being ejected, while Atkins had five points.
Sky coach Tyler Marsh called the situation 'unfortunate.'
5 Hartley (l) and Atkins (r) yell at one another.
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'I think things like that have a tendency to happen when there's not a control put on the game prior to — there's usually an incident that goes overlooked that leads to something like that,' Marsh said. 'I think [Allen] clearly got elbowed in the face right in front of the ref. It wasn't called. Then, other things ensued.
'It's unfortunate for us. Two players that play high-quality, high-valuable minutes for us, we were down for most of the game. It was tough. I thought the team rallied back, fought hard to finish it out but it's unfortunate.'
The ejections left the Sky with just eight players available in the second half due to Angel Reese missing the game with a back injury and Courtney Vandersloot being sidelined with an ACL tear.
The Sky (8-24) have now lost 11 of 12, including three straight.
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