LAS VEGAS — Washington State’s Alex Covill gets at least one more game in a season that sometimes seemed determined to keep her on the sidelines. The junior center and her teammates advanced through the first round of the Credit Union 1 West Coast Conference Women’s Basketball Championship with an 80-58 victory over Seattle U on Thursday afternoon.
The ninth-seeded Cougars (8-24) will face No. 8 Pacific (11-18) in a second-round game Friday at noon at Orleans Arena.
For Covill, who had 12 points and six rebounds against the Redhawks (5-25), just being on the floor feels good. She suffered a stress reaction in her foot in the second game this season and missed the next 11 games. When she returned for WSU’s conference opener against Pepperdine, Covill took an elbow to the face that left her with a broken nose and put her on the shelf for two more games.
“It’s been a little bit of an up and down season for me,” Covill said. “But I really have to thank my teammates and my coaches for having my back and supporting me along the way. Honestly, they’re kind of the reason I feel like I’m playing my best basketball right now because they’re putting me in the right spots.”
A native of Missoula, Mont., Covill has scored in double digits for the past six games and is averaging 13.3 points and 5.8 rebounds over that stretch.
At 6-foot-6, Covill presents issues for the Cougars’ opponents at both ends of the floor. “She always brings so much advantage for us because no one has her size and she’s so good at finishing,” said junior guard Ele Villa, who led WSU with 22 points. “She’s such a good player.”
Without Covill, the Cougars were 1-12. They are now 7-12 with her available to contribute. Head coach Kamie Ethridge said the repeated setbacks have been a lot for Covill to overcome. Even now, she is dealing with another issue in her foot that allows her to play but has limited her availability for practice.
“She had such an amazing summer, such an amazing preseason,” Ethridge said. “And then you just have to shut her down for seven weeks. For her, that’s a hard thing to get that momentum back and play with physicality and the timing and the power that she kind of built up.
“We’ll take what we can get from her. It’s not ideal, but she’s such a dominant player on both sides of the ball. You can’t overlook what an impact she is on the defensive end, too.”
PACIFIC REMATCH: WSU played Pacific just once this season, losing 65-53 back on Jan. 22. The Tigers play a physical brand of defense that limited Villa and Covill to a combined 18 points on 5-for-19 shooting.
“I watch that film and I don’t even recognize some of the things we’re in. That has a lot to do with them — they’re very, very good defensively,” Ethridge said. “Very physical on Alex. She won’t get easy looks at the basket.
"They’ll bring people at Ele. I just love how Ele gets through double teams, gets the ball where it needs to go and can still score 22 points. She’s used to every kind of defense. We’ve got to move the ball and make people pay for putting two people on the ball.”
PRAISE FOR CHATFIELD: MacKenzie Chatfield, a junior guard from New Zealand, gave the Cougars eight points, five assists and three steals. Afterward, her coach made special mention of her contributions.
“Quite frankly, she was the dominant player on the floor,” Ethridge said of Chatfield, who was plus-25 on the stat sheet. “When she was on the court, our team played its very best basketball. I love her game right now. I love her disposition and every word she speaks is the right things she should be saying at the right time.”
REDHAWKS’ TOUGH SEASON ENDS: Seattle U suffered a disappointing campaign, dropping its final 14 games. The school announced Monday that third-year coach Skyler Young’s contract will not be renewed. After Thursday’s game, his players had nothing but good things to say about him.
“I just wanted to thank Coach Sky for giving me the opportunity to come back home,” said senior forward Tamia Strickland, a Seattle native who transferred from Fresno State prior to last season and had 17 points and 11 rebounds in her final game.
“I think he’s an amazing coach and I think he’s going to do amazing things. Despite the outcome, he wants the best for us. It’s not transactional, it’s not a business. I’m super grateful to him and excited that he made me fall back in love with the game.”
Graduate guard Ella Brubaker, another Seattle area native, transferred home from Pepperdine this year and said it has been one of the most fun seasons of her life. She called Young “a genuine coach, a genuine person. That’s rare to find nowadays.”
Young said his players continued to work hard to the finish. “It’s always been about relationships and treating people right,” he said. “I know this business and I know it’s also about wins and losses. I know I didn’t get enough wins, but I appreciate the opportunity I was given by Seattle University. They’ll very definitely hire a great coach and I’ll keep coaching.”
SAN DIEGO’S BLOCK PARTY: In 678 minutes through 30 games, San Diego sophomore guard Lilly Amor had blocked a total of four shots. She had four blocks in the Toreros’ 66-62 victory over Saint Mary’s, including one that gave her team the final edge.
USD was nursing a 63-62 lead with 25 seconds left when Amor blocked a shot by Saint Mary’s star Malia Latu, who scored 19 points in the game. Amor was fouled afterward and — despite having missed her only two free throw attempts all season — she converted both for a 65-62 lead.
“Lilly is not somebody who’s always going to pack the stat sheet. But she takes on our defensive assignments and we trust her and she understands what the has to do,” USD first-year head coach Blanche Alverson said.
Amor actually played all 40 minutes and finished with four blocked shots, doubling her season total. “For her to have that moment today is really full circle for her,” Alverson said.
ALL RHODES LEAD TO VICTORY: USD senior guard Hallie Rhodes, who suffered a hamstring injury in January that cost her four games, delivered 22 points and nine rebounds in this one. But with 5.7 seconds left, and the Toreros still up just 65-62, she missed the front end of a two-shot free throw opportunity.
“I know, I know,” she said, looking to the San Diego bench before smiling and knocking down the second shot to seal the win. “Just my teammates talking to me on the bench,” she said. “They were just saying, `It’s OK.’ I love their support. I’m having trouble with my equilibrium since my injury.”
The Toreros (11-21) play a second-round game Friday at 2:30 p.m. against San Francisco (16-13), which won both regular-season matchups by four points.
RAY’S BIG SHOT: San Diego guard Kylie Ray, who had 19 points and 10 rebounds, helped the Toreros halt the Gaels’ third-quarter momentum when she banked in a running 45-footer at the buzzer for a 45-44 lead.
Saint Mary’s had outscored USD 18-8 in the quarter to that point, and Ray credited “luck” for her shot going in. “They went on a run (in the third quarter) and it just brought the energy back,” Ray said.
Gaels head coach Jeff Cammon gave full credit to the Toreros, but saw a game that could have gone either way. “Sometimes you need the basketball gods on your side,” he said after his team finished the season 15-17.
“We pretty much stifled them,” he said of the third quarter rally from a 13-point deficit. “Then they hit that and it gave them some life.”