WALLA WALLA, Wash. – The game just couldn't end soon enough Saturday in Whitman College's upset bid of visiting and third-ranked George Fox University. The host Missionaries rallied at the end of the first half with eight unanswered points to take a lead into the halftime break, then maintained their advantage past the midway point of the second half but the Bruins finally wrested the lead away and finished off a 73-65 Northwest Conference win over Whitman on Senior Night at the Sherwood Athletics Center.

Trailing Fox (23-0, 14-0 NWC) by six with two minutes to play in the opening half, Whitman (15-8, 10-4) ran off eight straight points to push in front, 36-34, at the break. Heather Johns scored four of the eight points and came away with a pair of rebounds, Emily Rommel dropped in a layup, and Heather Lovelace finished the stretch with a quick turnaround jumper. Prior to that run and before the Bruins built that six-point edge the teams had battled to five ties and five lead changes.

Casey Poe opened the second half with a jumper from the left wing to increase the Whitman advantage to four and the M's were able to hold off the nationally-ranked Bruins for the next 11 minutes.

A Chelsi Brewer 3-pointer put Whitman up 54-50 at the 10-minute mark but those would be the last points the M's would score over the next five minutes. George Fox's 12-0 run over that span turned the tide and Whitman, beset by injuries during the season and playing with a short bench, simply wasn't able to recover.,Over the final five minutes the teams traded baskets as Whitman tried valiantly to chip away at the Fox edge.

Johns posted a team-high 18 points for Whitman while also coming down with a team-best eight rebounds and adding a game-high nine assists. Hailey Ann Maeda, with 12 points, Poe with 11, and Rommel with 10 also cracked double-digits for the M's in the loss. Fox was led by Justine Benner's game-high 20 points and a double-double by Lauren Codling who scored 15 and pulled down 12 rebounds.

Johns, Lovelace, Katie Gray and Hallie Buse, one of the injured forced to watch from the sideline, played their last regular season contest on the George Ball Court. The foursome will graduate as the winningest senior class in program history.

The regular season finishes on the road for Whitman as it travels West to face the University of Puget Sound Friday night followed by the season finale at Pacific Lutheran University Saturday afternoon.