Thomas Stone High School girls basketball coach Tynisha Matthews talks to her players during a break in the action on March 3 when the Cougars traveled to Calvert for the 2A South Region semifinals. Stone won that contest 50-35 then upended Huntingtown 43-30 for the 2A South Region title before falling to Wicomico 53-32 last Saturday afternoon in a 2A state quarterfinal contest.
Thomas Stone High School girls basketball coach Tynisha Matthews talks to her players during a break in the action on March 3 when the Cougars traveled to Calvert for the 2A South Region semifinals. Stone won that contest 50-35 then upended Huntingtown 43-30 for the 2A South Region title before falling to Wicomico 53-32 last Saturday afternoon in a 2A state quarterfinal contest.
Although it was not one of two teams that earned a berth in the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference girls basketball championship game last month, the Thomas Stone High School girls team did earn bragging rights as the lone region champion from Southern Maryland.
Stone (16-10), which defeated Huntingtown 43-30 for the 2A South Region title earlier this month, saw its season come to an end on Saturday when the Cougars were upended by Wicomico 53-32 in the 2A state quarterfinals in Salisbury.
In many respects the Cougars’ run through the region was improbable at best, although they would become the only girls SMAC team to earn a region title.
Stone lost its last three December games by a grand sum of 12 points against three quality opponents, Westlake, St. Charles and Williamsport, and later it would also suffer a trio of narrow setbacks in the final two weeks of the regular season. Its 54-47 home loss to Calvert proved costly, since it meant the Cougars would have to travel to Calvert in the region playoffs.
But before the two teams would meet again for the second time in three weeks, Stone had upended both Northern and La Plata by a combined sum of nearly 50 points. Then in the rematch against the Cavaliers, the Cougars were eager to atone for their prior setback by upending Calvert 50-35 to actually earn a home game in the region final against Huntingtown, which eliminated top seed Westlake in the other region semifinal.
“One of our goals all year was just to get to the region final,” Stone senior Destini Shorts said. “Being able to host that game was really a bonus.”
While the Cougars’ run to the state quarterfinals may have caught some teams by surprise this year, the vast majority of their roster, including leading scorer sophomore Zoe Carter, and sophomore point guard Heaven Coles, will return for the next two seasons.
