Flau’jae Johnson’s, Zia Cooke’s Career-Highs Lead Seattle Storm to 77-59 Win Over Connecticut Sun
By Teren Kowatsch
SEATTLE - The Seattle Storm were able to find their first home win of the season Friday at Climate Pledge Arena off a pair of career-highs from two of their best guards.
Flau’jae Johnson and Zia Cooke had 17 and 25 points, respectively (both career-highs) to lead the Storm (2-4) to a 77-59 win over the Connecticut Sun.
Seattle Storm guard Zia Cooke, who put together a statline of 25 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal off the bench, during the team’s win over the Connecticut Sun on May 22nd, 2026, at Climate Pledge Arena. (Photos by Bryant Garduque for Circling Seattle Sports)
Johnson’s career-best 17 points (on 7-for-12 shooting and 3-for-6 from beyond the arc), in addition to seven rebounds, five assists, and three blocks, came two days after she was benched in an 80-78 loss against Connecticut on Wednesday.
“I’ve been playing fast as (expletive),” Johnson said in a postgame news conference Friday. “I was like ‘wow (the pace) is really slow.’ Just getting my teammates involved … and just looking, and we make that extra pass in transition, we get the steal, and then I’m running, I’m trying to see what’s going on. … That type of basketball, that’s winning basketball. Coach (Sonia Raman) likes to say that’s Storm basketball.”
Seattle Storm rookie Flau’jae Johnson before, during, and after the teams victory over the Connecticut Sun on May 22nd, 2026, at Climate Pledge Arena. (Photos by Bryant Garduque for Circling Seattle Sports)
Before Johnson and Cooke hit their respective strides, Seattle had to work itself back from an early deficit.
The Sun began the game on an 8-0 run that forced the Storm to take a timeout with 7:23 left in the first.
A large part of Connecticut’s early offensive spurt was spurred by several plays in transition, which Seattle coach Sonia Raman identified as a point of emphasis for the team before the game.
Coming out of the timeout, the Storm were able to limit the quick possessions and cut into the Sun’s lead, going into the second quarter down 21-19.
“I think transition defense, so much of it comes from our offense too,” Raman said in a postgame news conference. “And offense in general. You look at where the transition opportunities start from. … So, as we look at our transition defense, were we crashing, and how many did we crash? Those are all things that I think are a factor, and we’re, again, trying to be as aggressive as we can on the offensive end, but then, quickly have that mindset shift to get back in transition. I think there was a couple shaky possessions early in the game, but I was proud of how they locked in on that.”
Seattle slowed down the game to its preferred tempo in the second half with a strong defensive performance.
The Storm limited Connecticut to seven points and put up 18 to go into halftime with a 37-28 advantage.
Cooke outscored the Sun by herself in the second quarter. She recorded 16 points in the first half, equally split in the first and second quarters, respectively.
“(I’m) not getting too high and not getting too low,” Cooke said after the game. “I’ve realized in the (WNBA) it can be a mental test a lot of times. And I just can’t let that test win. I got to make sure that I’m on my ‘A’ game at all times, controlling what I can control and be where my feet is at.”
Cooke scored her 25 on 7-for-14 shooting (9-for-10 from the free-throw line) and added five rebounds, an assist, and a steal.
Seattle came out of halftime ready to speed up the tempo in its favor and put its foot on the gas to put Connecticut out of reach.
The Storm led the Sun by as much as 16 points in the third quarter before the visitors cut their deficit back down to 10 going into the final 10 minutes.
Seattle was held scoreless for the final four minutes of the third, but Connecticut was only able to put up six points, with four being scored by forward Aneesah Morrow.
The Sun kept pace with the Storm for the first two minutes of the fourth quarter. Morrow hit a 3-pointer to keep Seattle at a 10-point lead, 59-49, with 7:59 left in the game.
The Storm responded with an 11-0 run in which guard Natisha Hiedeman scored five. She finished the game with 11 points, six assists, and two rebounds.
Seattle was able to cruise from there and kept Connecticut at bay for the 18-point decision.
“For me, you’ve got to be delusional, I feel like. I’m (really) delusional. I just am. I feel like when you have that mentality — I feel like we have so many thoughts. Might as well feed into the positives. … You might as well buy into that because you never know. I feel like that’s just us having that ‘next-game’ mentality. I’m learning that it’s a quick turnaround. We about to play again in two days. So you got to have short-term memory, like goldfish, and you just go to go out there and compete.”
Quick notes from Storm PR
9,741 was the announced attendance at Climate Pledge Arena for this WNBA regular season game between the visiting Connecticut Sun and our Seattle Storm.
The Storm’s 21-point lead on the Sun marks Seattle’s biggest lead in a game this season.
Seattle held Connecticut to just 59 points, their lowest point total of the season thus far.
The Storm connected on a season-high 22 assists, led by Natisha Hiedeman, who dished six of those for 14 additional points.
Natisha Hiedeman finished in double figures for the fourth straight game, tallying 11 points and a game-high six assists.
Zia Cooke led the Storm with a career-high 25 points.
She notched 16 in the first half on 55.6% (5-for-9) shooting, including 50% (2-for-4) from the three-point line. She also went 9-for-10 for the first time in her career and added five rebounds and one steal.
Flau’jae Johnson recorded new career highs for points (17), made field goals (7), rebounds (7), and assists (5).
She shot 58.3% from the field, including 50.0% from three, and swatted three Connecticut shots.
The Storm will next be in action against the Washington Mystics at 3 PM PDT on Sunday at Climate Pledge Arena. The game will be broadcast locally on KOMO and the CW Seattle. It will also be streamed on Prime for users in Washington state.
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Check out our previous Seattle Storm articles here.
This is our first article written by Teren Kowatsch! Check out his work covering the Seattle Mariners here and the Washington Huskies athletics here, both with Roundtable Sports!
Check out our previous articles with photos by Bryant Garduque here, and his portfolio here.
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