Just like her team, Monarchs guard Ticha Penicheiro is off to another hot start this season. The player who led the league in assists every season between her rookie year in 1998 and 2003 is once again creating for her teammates and adding to her own assist records. No player in the history of the WNBA has more dished more dimes than Penicheiro.

On Sunday, May 29, Penicheiro tallied 10 assists in a 67-66 win in Minnesota that put the Monarchs atop the Western Conference standings with a 3-0 mark. In her three games so far this season, Penicheiro's 6.0 assists per game ranks second in the WNBA behind last week's winner, Shock guard Deanna Nolan. She also had 11 points and 4 assists on Friday in a win over the San Antonio Silver Stars and is averaging 8.0 points per game and is a perfect 10-10 from the free throw line.

Entering her eighth season after graduating from Old Dominion in 1998, the Portugal native won the WNBA Cascade Dish & Assist Award back in 2003. For her career, she averages 7.0 assists per game.

The Monarchs were fell just short of the reaching the WNBA Finals for the first time in 2004, falling to the eventual champion Seattle Storm in a three-game Western Conference Finals. After several offseason moves, the Monarchs are looking to get back to the postseason and go even further in 2005.

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Last week's Dish & Assist winner: Deanna Nolan