The Portland Fire couldn’t have written a better script for their long-awaited return to the WNBA. After 24 years without a victory, the franchise delivered one of the league’s most emotional moments Tuesday night, when Sarah Ashlee Barker’s buzzer-beating putback stunned the New York Liberty 98-96 at a sold-out Moda Center.

The building erupted instantly. Players sprinted onto the floor. Fans jumped to their feet. And for the first time since the Fire officially rejoined the WNBA this season, Portland finally had a signature moment to call its own.

With the score tied in the closing seconds, Bridget Carleton launched a difficult three-pointer over Breanna Stewart. The shot missed badly off the side of the backboard, but Barker crashed the lane at exactly the right moment, grabbed the rebound, and flipped the ball in before the buzzer sounded. It was messy. It was chaotic. It was unforgettable.

Barker finished with just five points off the bench, but none were bigger than those final two. The former first-round pick described the moment afterward as “surreal,” saying instinct simply took over once the rebound bounced her way. “I just saw the ball go to the side and I knew I had to crash,” Barker said after the game.

The timing made the moment even more poignant. Barker revealed she had experienced a personal loss within her family shortly before the game, later calling the buzzer-beater a “God wink.” That perspective seemed to resonate throughout the arena as teammates mobbed her under the basket following the win.

For a franchise trying to reconnect with a city that waited more than two decades for women’s professional basketball to return, it was the exact kind of moment Portland had been craving. With the Fire now officially on the board, the energy in the Rose City is only just beginning to heat up.