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Michael Voepel
Multiple Authors
The Toronto Tempo outlasted the Liberty 93-91 Sunday in Montreal after an eventful fourth quarter that saw New York’s Betnijah Laney-Hamilton ejected for tossing a shoe.
With 1:48 remaining, Liberty center Jonquel Jones lost her shoe and Laney-Hamilton threw it — hitting Toronto’s Marina Mabrey in the back.
It was Laney-Hamilton’s second technical foul, and she was ejected. Mabrey made the technical free throw to put Toronto up 91-89.
Liberty coach Chris DeMarco said after the game that Laney-Hamilton was trying to throw the shoe back to Jones and didn’t mean to hit Mabrey.
Mabrey also said she thought that is what happened.
“I had to take a couple breaths,” Mabrey said of her reaction to the shoe hitting her. “But I think she was really just trying to get the shoe back to JJ. But I’ll take the free throw.”
Mabrey and Laney-Hamilton had been going back-and-forth all game while guarding each other; both were called for technical fouls in the third quarter for a skirmish.
Official Kevin Fahy, in explaining Laney-Hamilton’s ejection, told a pool reporter that she “picked up a shoe and threw it at Marina Mabrey, and it hit Marina in the back, so she received her second technical foul and subsequently was ejected from the basketball game.”
Toronto coach Sandy Brondello said she thought the shoe hitting Mabrey was unintentional. She was happy her team — which led by 16 going into the fourth quarter — was able to keep its composure when New York made a comeback that saw the Liberty outscore the Tempo 27-13 in the period.
New York’s Breanna Stewart tied the game at 91 after Mabrey’s free throw, but Nyara Sabally — who previously played for the Liberty from 2023-25 — made a layup with 52.5 seconds left that proved to be the winning points for Toronto.
“It was a little scary there in the fourth,” said Brondello, who coached the Liberty from 2022-25. “This team’s resilient. I thought our defense was pretty solid for the most part until we got a little tight and the refs decided to call every foul for New York near the end. But we hung in there and found a way to win. So proud of the group. We deserve it. We’ve been in so many games, so it’s nice for us to get a win.”
Mabrey, recently named to her first All-Star team, had 30 points Sunday and 34 Friday when the Tempo lost to Dallas.
Toronto had lost four in a row before Sunday and is now 10-13.
The expansion franchise, wanting to establish the team’s fanbase throughout Canada, played its past two games at Montreal’s Bell Centre, drawing crowds of 20,996 Friday (a WNBA regular-season attendance record) and 12,724 Sunday.
