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Stone, Whitman keep championship hopes alive

Posted in Basketball, Wolves in college, tagged , , , , , on February 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Makana Stone tossed in 19 points Saturday as Whitman slipped past Linfield for a key league win. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The big three were on fire, and sometimes that’s all you need.

Getting 20 points from Mady Burdett, 19 from Coupeville’s Makana Stone, and a double-double from lone senior Maegan Martin, the Whitman College women’s basketball team rolled to a nice bounce-back win.

Knocking off visiting Linfield 72-63 Saturday on Senior Night, the Blues earned a split for the weekend and kept alive hopes of winning a Northwest Conference title.

With the victory, Whitman soars to 12-2 in league play, 18-5 overall, and stays a game back of George Fox (13-1, 20-3) with two regular-season games left on the schedule.

The Blues travel to Tacoma next weekend, where they will play Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran.

After that comes the four-team NWC tournament, and, most likely, a bid to the NCAA D-III national tournament.

Saturday, Whitman had to bounce right back after a tough four-point loss to George Fox, and the Blues didn’t disappoint.

Burdett and Stone came out firing in the first quarter, combining for 19 points as Whitman built a 26-18 lead.

Coupeville’s progeny hit a pair of buckets off of quick slashes to the hoop, packaged around a solid turnaround jumper, while Burdett went wild from behind the three-point arc.

Tossing in a trio of treys, she finished with 13 points across the first 10 minutes.

After that, the teams settled into a fairly taut game, with just a single point separating the two squads across the final three quarters.

But, while Linfield held even with Whitman in the second (11-11) and fourth (16-16) quarters, and trailed just 19-18 in the third, the Blues never surrendered the lead.

Stone, who wasn’t bothered by any pesky reffing blunders on this night, poured in points in every quarter.

A layup and a jumper that popped up, hit the glass and rattled back in, gave her 10 at the half, then the former Wolf added a pair of buckets in the third before closing with five fourth-quarter points to blunt a late Linfield rally.

Flying down court on the kind of run CHS fans saw every day, Stone pulled in a pass off a Martin steal, beating the crowd to the bucket to stake Whitman to a 61-56 lead with five minutes to play.

Right after that, Martin put together her own mini highlight reel, raining down a rare (for her) three-ball, followed by a bucket in the paint, stretching the margin back out to double digits.

Stone capped things with a final bucket, banging away down low, uprooting her defender, then whirling and banking home a short jumper.

She snatched five rebounds and dealt out an assist to go with her 19 points (on 9-12 shooting), while Martin celebrated her regular-season home swan song with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

On the season, Stone sits with 332 points, 186 rebounds, 39 assists, 25 steals and 18 blocks.

She’s shooting 141-269 from the floor and 49-64 at the free throw line.

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She shoots, she scores

Posted in Basketball, Wolves in college, tagged , , , , on February 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Kailey Kellner (right), seen with Coupeville teammate Tiffany Briscoe, scored seven points Saturday in a college hoops game. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Given the chance, Kailey Kellner is contributing.

The Coupeville High School grad, like many of her D’Youville College women’s basketball teammates, has seen her minutes wildly fluctuate this season.

Saturday was one of the better times, as Kellner was on the floor for 18 minutes, giving her time to drop in seven points, deal out two assists and snag a rebound.

It wasn’t quite enough to save her team, however, as a terrible third quarter doomed the Spartans in an 89-55 loss at Penn State-Altoona.

The defeat drops D’Youville to 5-10 in Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference play, 8-14 overall, and makes its pursuit of a postseason berth that much harder.

The Spartans sit in eighth-place in the 10-team league, and only six squads get to punch their ticket to the playoffs.

With just three games left, and one against league-leading Hilbert, it will be an uphill climb for D’Youville.

Saturday, the Spartans fell behind 19-10 after one quarter, and 39-26 at the half, but it was a 30-9 third quarter which hit like an avalanche.

D’Youville played its best ball in the fourth, coming away with a 20-20 tie as Kellner scored five of her seven points in the final frame.

She swished a pair of free throws early, before closing the game with a vintage three-ball.

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Stone sizzles in return, can’t save Blues

Posted in Basketball, tagged , , , , , on February 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville grad Makana Stone returned from an injury to score a team-high 16 points Friday for Whitman. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

It was a good news, bad news kind of night Friday in Walla Walla.

On the positive side, Coupeville’s Makana Stone was back on the floor after missing a game with a sprained ankle.

But while the former Wolf was running seemingly effortlessly after sitting a week-plus, and went off for a team-high 16 points, Whitman College came up just short in the biggest game of the year.

With Stone padlocked to the bench after picking up a phantom fifth foul with two-and-a-half minutes to play, the Blues couldn’t hold on to a one-point lead in the final minute, falling 61-57 to visiting George Fox.

The loss gives Whitman a season split with their biggest women’s basketball rivals, with both teams winning on the other’s floor, and it comes at a crucial time.

George Fox, the defending Northwest Conference champs, moves to 12-1 in league play, and sits a game up on Whitman (11-2) with three to play.

Whitman, 17-5 overall, has already clinched one of the four playoff berths for the NWC postseason tourney, and can finish no lower than third in the final standings.

The Blues finish their run through the nine-team league with a string of tough games.

After hosting #4 Linfield (7-6, 11-11) Saturday on Senior Night, Whitman closes the regular season on the road Feb. 15-16 against #3 Puget Sound (10-3, 17-4) and #5 Pacific Lutheran (6-7, 13-8).

Friday night’s rumble with George Fox pitted the top offense in the Northwest Conference against the top defense.

In the end, the defense triumphed … with a little help from the refs, who compounded the call on Stone by also whiffing on a crucial non-call with 12 seconds to go which would have given Whitman a chance to tie the game.

Right before fouling out, Stone hit a huge bank shot to cut Whitman’s deficit to 51-49.

Even after losing their top scorer and rebounder, the Blues hung tough, taking a 53-52 lead with a hair over a minute to play, thanks to back-to-back buckets from Taylor Chambers, who hadn’t scored all night.

Whitman then shrugged off a George Fox three-ball thanks to a nifty Natalie Whitesel reverse layup which knotted things at 55 all.

The final 30 seconds, though, belonged to Bruin star Emily Spencer.

A demon on defense all night, she stepped up to drill the already-mentioned trey, then put George Fox ahead to stay with a slashing layup with just 26 ticks left on the clock.

Whitesel had a chance to go to the line, but all three refs ignored the Prairie High School grad being hammered by a host of Bruins on the ensuing layup attempt.

From there, George Fox swished all four of its free throw attempts in the game’s final 10 seconds, with Spencer appropriately dropping the final daggers, and Whitman’s last chance wafted away.

The game started as an offensive show, with Stone slamming home six points in the opening quarter, to go with 10 from hot-shooting teammate Mady Burdett.

While Whitman trailed 22-20 at the first break, thanks to George Fox scoring right at the buzzer, the Blues looked strong.

And no one played as effectively as Stone did, as she picked the ball from a George Fox ball-handler and went coast to coast for a breakaway bucket.

On defense, she was equally a force, rejecting a shot and twice forcing opposing post players into committing travels as they tried to get around her in the paint.

A Burdett three-ball capped a 7-0 Whitman run, sending the Blues into the locker room up 33-30.

That stirred positive memories of the first meeting between these teams, for everyone from the announcers on the internet stream to random people watching the feed in ice-covered Coupeville.

Back on Jan. 12 in Newberg, OR, Whitman savaged George Fox in the third quarter and turned a three-point halftime bulge into a 73-54 blowout.

Friday night, however, the Blues went cold from the outside, and it hurt them.

After scoring 13 in the first half, Burdett was held scoreless across the game’s final 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, Whitman, the best three-ball-shooting team in the league, suffered through a 3 for 17 performance from behind the arc.

Stone did what she could, powering her way to three more buckets in the third, but Spencer stung Whitman for the first of many times, popping an offensive rebound back up and in with a single second on the clock.

That staked George Fox to a 45-44 lead heading into the fourth, and then the ref’s glaucoma became an issue.

Stone, who missed a chunk of the game after injuring herself against Whitworth Jan. 29, then sat out against Lewis & Clark Feb. 1, made her return an auspicious one.

Netting her 16 points on strong 8-11 shooting, she also ripped down six rebounds, pilfered two steals and rejected a shot in 27 minutes of floor time.

On the season, the Whitman junior sits with 313 points, 181 rebounds, 38 assists, 25 steals and 18 blocks.

Stone is shooting 132-257 from the floor and 48-62 at the free throw line.

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Youth basketball finale bumped a week

Posted in Basketball, tagged , , , , on February 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Park the car and stay home. There’s no basketball. (Photo by David Svien)

Snowmageddon 2019 has claimed another event. But not permanently.

The season finale for the youth basketball league run by Coupeville High School coaches and players, originally set for Saturday, Feb. 9, is being pushed back a week.

With snow still falling in many areas, and much more expected, as well as freezing temperatures arriving to possibly turn Whidbey’s roads into ice rinks, postponing an early-morning event seems more than reasonable.

The final week of lessons and games, as well as pictures, will go down 9 AM next Saturday, Feb. 16.

Unless we’re entering a new ice age. Then check back later for updates.

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Kellner singes net, rebounds hurt her team

Posted in Basketball, Wolves in college, tagged , , , , on February 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville grad Kailey Kellner swished a pair of three-balls Wednesday in a college basketball game. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Shooters gotta shoot, but rebounders gotta rebound, too.

Coupeville grad Kailey Kellner did her part Wednesday, dropping in a pair of long three-balls, but her D’Youville College women’s basketball teammates couldn’t keep their rivals off the boards at the end and it killed them.

Penn State-Behrend only held a 40-37 rebound advantage at game’s end in Erie, Pennsylvania, but grabbed boards when it mattered most in the final three minutes.

That allowed the host Lions to keep returning to the foul line, and Penn State closed the game on an 8-0 surge, winning a key league game 66-61.

The loss drops D’Youville to 5-9 in Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference play, 8-13 overall.

With just four games left in the regular season, the Spartans are still scrapping for a playoff berth, but watching their postseason ticket slip further away.

D’Youville sits in 8th place in a 10-team league, a game-and-a-half out of 6th, which is where the playoff cut is made.

Kellner and Co. stay in Pennsylvania for now, and will play Penn State-Altoona Saturday afternoon.

After that, the Spartans close with two of their last three at home.

Wednesday’s match-up in Erie, just a short 2,558.9-mile trip from where Kellner played high school ball, offered a prime chance for D’Youville to make a positive move in the standings.

The Spartans rolled out an early 19-14 lead after one quarter of play, then surged to a double-digits lead midway through the second frame.

Kellner, after snagging a defensive rebound, came down and torched Penn State for a trey which stretched the margin to 26-16.

Things got dicier after that, however, as the Lions crawled back into the game, pulling within five at the half, and getting all the way back to just a basket behind after three quarters.

With the action going back-and-forth, Kellner hauled down a second rebound, which set up a teammate for a bucket, then drilled her second three-ball to push D’Youville in front 47-45 late in the third.

The Spartans led the game until late in the fourth, taking their final lead at 61-58 after Monica June slipped a pair of free throws through the net with 3:16 left on the clock.

Unfortunately for the Spartans, they went ice cold after that, missing their final six shots while Kellner sat on the bench.

Penn State wasn’t perfect down the stretch, clanking four of 10 free throws in the final three minutes, but it kept on snagging rebounds, and getting more freebies, until things piled up in its advantage.

Kellner, who played 11 minutes, finished with six points and two rebounds.

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