Yahoo Finance Sun guards Briann January, Natisha Hiedeman test positive for coronavirus
Two key members of the Connecticut Sun did not travel with the team to Florida ahead of the WNBA’s modified season after testing positive for COVID-19, the team announced on Sunday.
Sun guards Natisha Hiedeman and Briann January both contracted the coronavirus and are isolating in their homes in Connecticut and Arizona, respectively. It’s not clear when the pair tested positive, however the positive tests were conducted between June 28 and July 5.
Both Hiedeman and January are expected to rejoin the team at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida — where the WNBA season will take place — after they have recovered and tested negative. Once on campus, the team said, they will begin another round of quarantine and testing.
“We’ll get both of them here as soon as they get through all the regulations and the protocols,” Sun coach Curt Miller said, via ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel. “We’re in constant communication with both of them every day. We miss them.”
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January averaged 6.5 points and 3.2 assists per game last season with the Phoenix Mercury, her 11th season in the league. The former Arizona State star has led the league in 3-point shooting percentage twice, too, most recently in 2018 when she shot 47 percent from behind the arc.The 33-year-old was traded to Connecticut as part of a three-team trade with the Phoenix Mercury and Atlanta Dream in February.
Hiedeman, 23, averaged 3.7 points and 1.9 assists last season with the Sun, her first in the league. The former Marquette star was selected in the second round of the 2019 draft by the Minnesota Lynx.
There were more than 3.2 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States as of Sunday afternoon, according to The New York Times, and nearly 135,000 deaths attributed to it. The country set a single-day record on Friday, too, recording more than 68,000 new cases.
Cases have been surging in Florida in recent weeks, too. The state had nearly 270,000 confirmed tests, the third-most in the country behind only New York and California, and recorded more than 11,000 new tests on Friday — a state record.
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