Coupeville Sports

   CHS grad Makana Stone (left) is joined by fellow fab frosh Mady Burdett (middle) and Annissia Hughes.

Sweet redemption.

Just five days after it lost its regular season finale, the Whitman College women’s basketball squad rebounded Thursday to knock that same foe out of the playoffs.

The Blues, playing on the road in Newberg, OR, beat George Fox University 78-71 in the semifinals of the Northwest Conference Women’s Tournament.

Whitman (22-4) advances to play Puget Sound (25-1) in Tacoma 7 PM Saturday.

The Loggers almost didn’t make it to the championship game, which would have been a huge shock.

They were forced to rally from 10 points down with four minutes to play against Lewis & Clark, escaping with a 61-58 win.

The winning points came on a three-point play the hard way (bucket and free throw) from Jamie Lange, the league’s Freshman of the Year, with just 10 seconds to play.

Over in Oregon, the other semifinal matched teams with identical records that had split games during the regular season.

Whitman won 82-74 in Oregon Jan. 22, before George Fox upended the Blues 65-62 Feb. 18 in Walla Walla.

Thursday’s game started in favor of the Bruins, who built a 37-33 lead at the half, before Whitman stormed back in the second half.

A 23-15 third quarter gave the Blues the lead and they never relinquished it after that.

Coupeville High School grad Makana Stone, making the ninth start of her freshman season, dropped in 10 points and snatched seven boards in 31 minutes of action.

It was the second time the former Wolf has broken the 30-minute barrier this season (she played 35 minutes against Louisiana College in Dec.) and she used her time well.

Stone scored in every quarter, tickling the twines with three silky jumpers and two layups.

She was one of four Blues to hit double digits in scoring, with Chelsi Brewer (20), Casey Poe (15) and Emily Rommel (15) also wielding a hot shooting touch.

On the season, Stone has seen action in 25 of 26 games (missing one because of concussion protocol) and has racked up 165 points and 148 rebounds.

She’s #2 on the squad in rebounding and field goal percentage and has 25 assists, 11 blocks and 13 steals on her stat sheet.