The Washington Mystics turned a routine Sunday night into a full-blown endurance test at the Entertainment and Sports Arena, edging the Portland Fire 124-123 in a four-overtime classic that felt like it might never end. The slugfest ran 3 hours and 35 minutes, featured 21 ties and 12 lead changes, and morphed into one of the wildest games of the WNBA season. Sonia Citron dropped a career-high 32 points and buried the decisive basket with 21.4 seconds left in the fourth overtime, tying the league record for most overtimes in a single game.
According to The Associated Press, carried by WTOP, the win nudged the Mystics back to 9-9 while the Fire slid to 8-12. The AP recap underlines just how rare this was: it was only the second quadruple-overtime game in WNBA history.
Citron’s Big Night And The Trio That Carried Washington
The official box score on WNBA.com shows that Citron’s 32 were just the start of Washington’s firepower. Michaela Onyenwere poured in 30 points and Kiki Iriafen added 27, giving the Mystics a three-headed scoring engine that kept churning through all four extra periods. Citron’s go-ahead jumper with 21.4 seconds remaining in the final overtime was the last twist in a game that refused to calm down, and the trio’s combined production helped Washington survive every punch Portland threw.
Leite’s Late Heroics Nearly Stole It For Portland
On the other side, Portland guard Carla Leite did everything she could to flip the script. She forced overtime in regulation with a banked 25-foot three-pointer with 0.4 seconds left and finished with a team-high 32 points, while Sarah Ashlee Barker added 25, according to a local recap in the Washington Post. The Fire also lost guard Georgia Amoore late to right-knee soreness, an untimely setback that could echo into their upcoming games. Even with the injury and the mounting minutes, Portland kept pushing through each overtime and still came up just a single point shy.
Marathon Test For Depth And The Schedule
The sheer length of the contest, with its 3-hour, 35-minute runtime and nonstop swings on the scoreboard, turned it into a stress test for both benches, according to a postgame roundup on CBS Sports. Washington now has to turn the page quickly, with the Atlanta Dream coming to town on Thursday, while Portland heads to Seattle on Saturday, per the league schedule. Games like this tend to linger in the legs and in the standings, especially for teams jockeying for position as the season heats up.
The quadruple-overtime finish matched the only other 4-OT game in league history, Washington’s 72-69 win over Seattle on July 3, 2001, according to historical box scores. That marathon two decades ago and Sunday’s epic both show just how rarely the WNBA delivers this level of drawn-out drama, and why fans who stuck it out until the final buzzer will be telling stories about it for a long time. For full stats and play-by-play, see the WNBA game page and the archived box scores.
