ARLINGTON, TX — The Dallas Wings (5-3) have officially arrived on the WNBA scene, after defeating the defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces (4-3), 95-97, on Thursday at College Park Center. Jessica Shepard made a little basketball history in the process, and Azzi Fudd shone bright in the first start of her professional career, with 22 points on three made 3-pointers in the win.
The Wings settled in early with Maddy Siegrist’s hot hand from 3-point range and timely scoring from Fudd and Paige Bueckers,
but the Aces exerted their will to end the first quarter. The Wings feature some of their own firepower off the bench, but it was Aces backup Chennedy Carter who led all scorers with seven points in four minutes off the bench in the opening frame. The Aces led the Wings 26-21 after one.
Bueckers started looking for her shot in the second quarter as the wings tried to hang on. She scored on a give-and-go lay-in before pulling up from the perimeter with 7:35 left in the second to keep Dallas connected, down 36-29. But when the 3-pointers start falling from every direction, the Aces turn into something near unstoppable. The Wings weren’t even playing poorly in the first half, but Las Vegas was just executing a game plan on a whole ‘nother level.
Bueckers didn’t let the Wings go quiet into the break, though. She gave a pump fake to discard her defender with 10 seconds left in the half and canned her first 3-ball of the game on the Wings’ final possession before halftime to cut Vegas’ lead to 53-45 at halftime. Bueckers led the Wings with 11 points at halftime, while Carter led all scorers with 12.
The Wings put in work on the interior to work their way closer to the lead early in the third. Jessica Shepard scored on a second-chance bucket as Siegrist grabbed a rebound off her own miss to bring Dallas back to within 61-57 with six minutes left in the third. After a Las Vegas timeout, the Aces went back to the advantages of all advantages — A’ja Wilson — to steady the ship. The reigning WNBA MVP scored the Aces’ next three buckets, and Fudd and Bueckers each split trips to the free-throw line as the Vegas lead began to grow again.
That’s when Bueckers made a slick back-cut and scored on a laser of a pass from Shepard, completing the three-point play to get Dallas back to within 67-62 with 3:20 left in the third. The next time down, Shepard grabbed an offensive rebound on the second of Alysha Clark’s free throws and found Fudd for an open jumper to make it 67-65. Somehow, some way, the Wings battled back to a 72-72 tie entering the fourth quarter.
Awak Kuier dropped an absolute nuke from deep 3-point land with 6:50 left in the fourth quarter, perhaps the biggest bucket she’s scored in her WNBA career to date, to pull the Wings in front, 77-75. Alysha Clark did the same less than two minutes later, hitting her first 3-ball of the game from the left corner to extend the Wings’ lead to 82-77. Kuier scored another second-chance bucket after Shepard battled inside for yet another offensive board, then she lit the CPC roof on fire with her second 3-pointer of the fourth quarter the next time down.
“That was huge,” Wings coach Jose Fernandez said. “For her size and to be able to stretch the floor — it opens up the lane for back-cuts, for us to get paint touches off the bounce.”
All of a sudden, the Wings were the unstoppable force. All of a sudden, Dallas was up 90-81 with less than three minutes to play. All of a sudden, the measuring stick wasn’t long enough for how far this team had come since going 19-65 in the prior two seasons. College Park Center was set aflame once more when Bueckers nailed her second 3-ball of the game a minute later from the top of the key to make it 93-81.
“I can’t really remember a time where it’s gotten that loud and that electric,” Bueckers said. “To feel that momentum and to feel the crowd behind us like that gave us a lot of energy — gave us a boost. It felt really good to feed off of that energy and get stops and scores.”
The Aces left the floor stunned while the home crowd partied their way out the doors of the arena.
Fudd’s first start
Fudd earned the first start of her WNBA career against the defending WNBA champs on Thursday, and she looks all the way settled in at this point. She was a pest on the defensive end early on, stealing the ball from A’ja Wilson in the high post early in the first, which led to the first of two first-quarter 3-pointers from Maddy Siegrist, giving Dallas the early 3-0 lead. Siegrist’s second came with 4:15 left in the first and forced Las Vegas into its first timeout, with the Wings up 13-9.
Fudd curled off a screen for an open jumper, then bullied her way to the basket against Chelsea Gray later in the quarter, shooting 2-of-4 from the field in the opener. She knocked down her first 3-pointer of the game, then pulled up for another jumper the next time down, to pull the Wings to within six, down 40-34, midway through the second.
“She’s very confident in her shot,” Fernandez said. “And her teammates find her, which is — which, they should. What I like, is when people crowd her, she can get to her spot either going right or left. I like seeing her being so aggressive, putting the ball on the deck like she has, off a stagger or off of a flare.”
Fudd knocked down a smooth rhythm 3-pointer from the right wing to open the second half for Dallas, then tied the game, 70-70, on a drive past Carter as the Wings mounted a compelling charge in later in the frame. After Kuier made a huge 3-pointer early in the fourth, Fudd pulled up for another jumper the next time down to make it a 79-75 game and force the Aces into a timeout with 6:32 left to play. She knocked down her third 3-pointer of the game two minutes later, to make it 85-79 and give Fudd 22 points in the game.
“Any time I can take the floor with this group, it’s an honor, and I don’t take it lightly,” Fudd said. “Whether it’s coming off the bench, starting, I’m super grateful. I’m feeling more comfortable each game and just being aggressive. Not hesitating when I’m open. Not hesitating to use the screens when they’re set for me.”
Chennedy Carter returns
After playing overseas in 2025, Carter, the Mansfield Timberview graduate and Texas A&M product, made her return to Arlington as the first Ace off the bench, a role she has thrived in to start the 2026 season. She connected on a pull-up jumper as soon as she was inserted in the lineup with 3:20 left in the first, then stepped into a pull-up 3-ball from the top of the key two minutes later to give Las Vegas a 22-17 lead as part of a little 13-4 run. Carter was the beneficiary of a Kierstan Bell steal with just 20 seconds left in the first quarter and scored on a high-flying transition finish to extend the champs’ lead to 26-19.
I remember covering Carter during her time at Timberview for the local rag, and she was just a force of nature. No one could touch her on her way to the bucket in high school. In her fifth year in the W, she’s now simply doing it to better competition. She sliced and diced her way to the bucket through three Wings defenders with 9:15 left in the second for a scooping bucket that put the Aces up 29-23. Carter was immediate offense when she came back in later in the second, drifting toward the corner on a fast break and raising up for her second 3-ball of the game, a potential back-breaker that put Las Vegas up 48-36 and forced the Wings into a timeout.
Carter delivered a devastating cross-over dribble that led to her first bucket of the third quarter, a pull-up jumper near the elbow with 1:40 left in the frame to give the Aces a 69-65 advantage. Carter made a quick trip to the Aces’ locker room in the third and was not near as much of a factor in the second half, finishing with 14 points on 6-of-11 shooting.
Jessica Shepard is everywhere
Shepard’s monster start to the 2026 season continued in the third quarter against the Aces on Thursday. She piled up nine points, eight boards and five assists in the first half, then was everywhere Dallas needed her to be to sustain the run that lasted most of the quarter.
Shepard scored 11 points, grabbed seven more rebounds and dished a pair of dimes in the third to fuel the charge. She already recorded one triple-double this season, in last week’s 99-89 win at the Chicago Sky, but Thursday was truly The Jessica Shepard Game.
She bailed the Wings out of a tough situation on an out-of-bounds play early in the fourth, scoring over Cheyenne Parker-Tyus to give Dallas its first lead, 74-72, since early in the first quarter. Shepard completed her second triple-double of the year on Kuier’s first 3-pointer of the fourth quarter, an electrifying moment that cemented Shepard in Wings team history as well. She is now the first Dallas Wing to record a 20-20 triple-double and just the second player in WNBA history to record such a game.
Shepard finished with 22 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists in the win. No player has ever had a 22-20-10 night in WNBA history. And not only that, she was part of a defensive effort that held Wilson to just 10-of-24 shooting from the field. Wilson led the Aces with 21 points and seven boards in the loss, but that’s a far cry from the damage she inflicted on this team in three matchups a year ago.
