WNBA player has Maine ties

Although there is no WNBA team in New England, at least three area women root for the Charlotte Sting.

Geri Cyr of Hampden, Herma Johnson of Monson and Claudette Bartley of Bangor are all aunts to Nicole Levesque, a 5-foot-3 Sting point guard. Levesque, 25, was born in Presque Isle and lived in Van Buren for five years until her parents moved to Shaftsbury, Vt.

Cyr and Johnson watched Charlotte play the Houston Comets last Saturday, the only Sting game that has been televised in the Bangor area all season. Bartley, a beautician, had to work on Saturday but Johnson videotaped the game – a 77-69 loss to the Houston Comets – for her sister.

“We’re very excited for her and her family,” said Geri Cyr. “It’s been a lifetime dream for her.”

The thrill of watching Levesque in her television debut was momentarily on hold when she left the game early with an injury.

“We got a little worried, but she came back in,” Cyr said with a laugh.

Levesque said she thinks she was last in Maine five years ago, when she returned for her grandmother’s funeral, and she said her aunts usually visit her family in Vermont.

“I remember Maine as being a beautiful state,” she said.

Levesque played basketball at Wake Forest where she graduated in 1994. She earned her master’s degree from Radford College after playing professional basketball in Germany.

Levesque had practiced with the Sting during the tryout period, but the team signed former Cal guard Milica Vukadinovic instead. When Vukadinovic injured her back, the Sting called Levesque. She left her jobs in the golf shop and restaurant of Basin Harbor, a resort on Lake Champlain and flew to Charlotte.

“I wasn’t expecting it but it was pretty exciting,” she said.

Charlotte stands in fourth place in the league’s Eastern Conference and is tied with Cleveland for the last and final playoff spot. If they win their last two games, the Sting has an outside shot at the postseason. But the Sting have lost their last two games on the road, including the loss to the Comets last Saturday, and they face Utah and Phoenix next week.

“We know we’re capable of being in position,” Levesque said. “We just have trouble winning on the road. But what we know what we have to do.”

Levesque is averaging almost 23 minutes per game and scored a season-high 12 points, with four rebounds and four assists against the Sacramento Monarchs on Aug. 1.