For nearly three weeks the Whitman-Hanson girls basketball team had been one win shy of earning a spot in the MIAA tournament only to watching the window close with a string a double-digit losses.

Turns out they were just waiting for Senior Night.

The Panther snapped their five-game losing streak and qualified for the tournament with a 54-53 win over the North Quincy Red Raiders at the high school on Tuesday night.

The Panther bench came up big in the game with sophomore point guard Marina Kelley nailing down the win with a pair of free throws with 9.8 seconds left in the fourth quarter. The Panthers were without freshman forward Erin Clifford in the 57-44 loss to the Red Raiders on Jan. 23. She made her presence felt off the bench in the rematch with 11 points and 16 rebounds.

However the seniors fittingly carried the scoring load on Senior Night. Guard Mackenzie Hatfield led the Panthers with 15 points while Cassie Chernicki added 12 in their final Patriot League home game. Hatfield and Chernicki, along with fellow seniors Melissa and Brittany Arouca, Brittney Porter, Chrysta Slayton and Aimee Bombardier were all honored along with their families as part of the Senior Night festivities, and head coach Jim Daley said they will leave a legacy of hard work and commitment when they graduate.

“The kids have just come along and work really, really hard,” Daley said. “I’m very, very happy with all seven of the [seniors]. They’ve been great and we’ll miss them.”

The Panthers got a big monkey off their backs with the win, snapping a five game losing streak including three straight of more than 10 points. The Panthers dropped a pair of games over the weekend, losing 46-38 to the Silver Lake Lakers on Friday night and dropping a 61-43 game to the Sandwich Blue Knights on Sunday.

The Panthers had problems with Sandwich’s full-court press in the first half, but their own strong defense kept them in the game early. Whitman-Hanson trailed by six, 14-8, after one quarter, but a combination of turnovers and trouble shooting cost them in the second quarter as the Blue Knights went on a 12-4 run to take a 31-16 lead into halftime and never looked back.

“[Their press] gave us a lot of fits,” Daley said. “They commit to it and we weren’t as prepared as I hoped we would be.”

However Daley said he was happy with the performance of his team, and felt with a better shooting night, the game could have turned out differently.

“We’d played better than we have been playing,” Daley said. “We missed some easy shots that we have been making, but the girls played hard. I thought we were into the game and we tried as hard as we could, the result just wasn’t what we wanted.”

The Panthers will close out the regular season on Tuesday night when they host New Bedford at the high school.