Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Long Beach Stingrays

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Team history
  
1997-1998 (One season)

Arena
  
Walter Pyramid

Founded
  
1997

Championships
  
none

Head coach
  
Maura McHugh

Based in
  
Long Beach

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League
  
American Basketball League

The Long Beach Stingrays was a women's professional basketball team. It existed for only the 1997-98 season, and was a member of the American Basketball League.

The Stingrays played most of their home games at the Walter Pyramid on the campus of California State University, Long Beach; however, one home game was played at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim (now the Honda Center). Their head coach was Maura McHugh.

The Stingrays' biggest star player was their center, Yolanda Griffith. Other notable Stingrays included Beverly Williams, Michelle Marciniak, and the former Olympian Venus Lacy.

In what turned out to be the team's only season, the Stingrays made it all the way to the ABL's championship round. They beat the defending champion Columbus Quest in the first two games, both in Long Beach, but lost the final three games in Columbus, and with that, the series.

The Stingrays were contracted by the league in August 1998, and the rest of the league followed in December. Griffith, like most of the ABL's star players, eventually joined the competing Women's National Basketball Association. Griffith went on to a long career in the WNBA, most notably for the Sacramento Monarchs. As for McHugh, she has coached various professional and college teams.

League honors

Yolanda Griffith

  • ABL Defensive Player of the Year, 1997–98
  • All-ABL First Team, 1997–98
  • References

    Long Beach Stingrays Wikipedia