Friday night’s loss to the LA Sparks was a wonky game for the Toronto Tempo, after a 21-2 start for the Sparks. In a rare opportunity to play the same team twice in a row, the Tempo had a chance to redeem themselves Sunday night. The result was a dominant 106-96 win on the road, securing the team’s first franchise away win.
“I think we had a lot more urgency today,” head coach Sandy Brondello said on the differences she saw in her team on Sunday. “We were way more connected.”
The star of the Tempo’s victory in Los Angeles was guard Brittney Sykes, who scored a career-high 38 points to help the team to victory.
Sykes, who played for the LA Sparks when she set her previous career-high of 35 points in 2022, also shot 15-for-15 from the free-throw line.
“[With Toronto] I’m getting to do what I want to do, which is score the ball,” Sykes said of her role with the expansion Tempo team. “I have a coach and staff who understand the asset that I am, and they let that go on full display.”
“There’s a green light for me to just play my basketball,” Sykes continued.
While Sykes was the team’s leading scorer, she also brings a high level of defensive energy to the team. They’ve been vocal about wanting to be a top-five defensive team in the league, and Sykes, as a former WNBA All-Defence selection, is a big part of that.
The Tempo held 10x WNBA All-Star Nneka Ogwumike to just 17 points in the game and former WNBA No. 2 pick Cameron Brink to just seven points. The Sparks’ third frontcourt threat, Dearica Hamby, had 21 points. The Tempo managed all of this despite being down multiple frontcourt threats in Temi Fagbenle and Isabelle Harrison, who are both out with injury.
Another injury was added to Sunday’s report as starting point guard Julie Allemand was ruled out with a hip injury. Brondello said before the game that Allemand and Fagbenle are considered day-to-day in their recoveries. Harrison is progressing in her recovery from a hand injury she sustained in training camp.
With the Belgian Allemand out for the second game against the Sparks, rookie Kiki Rice made her first career start at point guard.
“Whether I’m starting or not, I’m just gonna go out there and do my job,” Rice said about her reaction to finding out she’d be starting. “I’m ready to get out there and learn and do my thing.”
“The advice I got from my teammates was to continue to be myself, play the game and let it come to me,” she continued.
The decision to start Rice, who played college basketball in Los Angeles at UCLA and won the 2026 NCAA Championship with the Bruins, ended up paying off. She scored 19 points in the game, shooting 5-for-8 from the field and 8-for-10 from the free throw line. She added 5 rebounds and 2 assists to her stat line, and did it all without committing a single turnover throughout the game.
“It shows the kind of poise she plays with for such a young player,” Brondello said of her rookie’s performance in her first start. “She didn’t panic; she read how they were defending her.”
“We were very excited when we drafted her,” Brondello continued. “We’re still very excited about her ceiling, where she could get to, and that was a massive game to step into with Julie out and play like she did.”
Winning a game against a team with as much star power as the Sparks should be a great confidence booster for this growing Tempo team. While Brondello has been vocal about understanding they are an expansion team who had to build their roster in “a hot minute,” as she put it before Sunday’s game, they are still going to fight.
The Tempo now have an even 2-2 record in their first four games of the season. They will now travel to Phoenix to play the Mercury on Tuesday, then to Minnesota to play the Lynx on Thursday. From there, it’s back home for a Saturday game against their fellow expansion team, the Portland Fire.
