Clark ‘feels good,’ says eye poke unintentional

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark said Tuesday her right eye is feeling good and dismissed any suggestion that she was intentionally hit by DiJonai Carrington in a Game 1 loss to the Connecticut Sun.

Clark was poked in the eye by Carrington in the first quarter of Sunday’s loss, leaving behind bruising. That bruising was nearly gone during media availability Tuesday.

“[It] feels good. It looks OK too, so I’m glad,” Clark said.

But the subject of the poke has become a topic on social media, so much so that Carrington was asked whether she intentionally hit Clark during the Sun’s availability.

“I don’t even know why I would intend to hit anybody in the eye,” Carrington said. “That doesn’t even make sense to me. But no, I didn’t. I didn’t know I hit her, actually. I was trying to make a play on the ball, and I guess I followed through and I hit her. Obviously it’s never intentional. That’s not even the type of player that I am.”

Clark shut down any speculation about the play when asked about it.

“It wasn’t intentional by any means,” Clark said. “Just watch the play.”

Clark and the Fever face a pivotal Game 2 on Wednesday night with their season hanging in the balance. The Rookie of the Year was held to 11 points on 4-of-17 shooting in the 93-69 loss in Game 1, but said she feels they will make enough adjustments to give themselves a much better chance.

“We know we’re capable of beating this team. We have done it,” said Clark, pointing to an 84-80 win over the Sun on Aug. 28. “Obviously, they’re really, really good and we know it’ll be a challenge, but I don’t think it’s anything we’re shying away from. I think you just embrace the challenge.

“We know we didn’t have our best [Sunday] and maybe the final score really seems like we did get blown out, but we had it to six points. We had it to eight points. It was just we could never really get over the hump.”

Fever coach Christie Sides said she was most disappointed in the defensive performance.

“We’ve done a really good job defensively in our schemes, and I don’t think we did a great job of making it really hard on them, especially with some of the shots that they took,” Sides said. “They shot the ball extremely well. There’s a lot of things that we can do differently to make it more difficult for them to get some of those shots.”

As for being one game away from elimination, Clark said, “I don’t want this to end. … I feel like it’s been a very special year for our organization and our goal is to get to the playoffs, but everybody in our locker room believes we can win this series. This is obviously a must-win for us and we believe we can come in here and win that.”