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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spokane Can Root For Homegrown Talent In Barratt

John Blanchette The Spokesman-Re

Brandy Barratt didn’t ask for much when she was choosing a college. Just her favorite uniform number - 12 - and a program that could get her to volleyball’s Final Four.

This year.

Not last year or next year, or the year after. Any additional appearances will, of course, be gratefully accepted - nothing against Cleveland or Madison or wherever else the NCAA decides to stage The Big Kill. But if she could only make it once, it had to be this year.

It had to be Spokane.

And what do you know? Maybe you can always get what you want.

The NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship comes to town this week and Brandy Barratt comes home as a reserve middle blocker on the nation’s top-ranked team, Long Beach State. That won’t necessarily make the 49ers the sentimental favorite, but it will be affirmation for each young woman in Spokane who pulls on knee pads every day after school that you can get there from here.

“That seed of hope,” Barratt’s former high school coach, Steve Gillis of Gonzaga Prep, called it.

The seed must be fertilized with the requisite dedication and sacrifice, and enriched by the sunshine of physical gifts. To that, Brandy Barratt might add conviction.

Few have envisioned their destinies quite as vividly.

“My senior year in high school, ESPN did a story on me for ‘Scholastic Sports America,”’ she remembered. “One of the things they asked was what was why I chose the college I did. I wanted to go somewhere that would be in the Final Four this year - and I did a pretty good job. My final three were Penn State, Ohio State and Long Beach State, and two of them are in.”

In the 49ers’ case, for the fifth time - but the first since 1993, when they won the second of their two NCAA titles under coach Brian Gimmillaro. This year’s return trip has been noticeably free of potholes. The Beach has lost just one match and seven games all season.

Naturally, Barratt looks back to that one loss - 25 matches ago - as the season’s turning point.

The 49ers traveled to Florida, then ranked No. 2, for a rare back-to-back series in September, and swept the Gators in three games in the Friday opener on live television. In a more private rematch Saturday, however, Florida rallied from a one-game deficit to beat the Beach in five.

“Everyone just felt horrible,” Barratt reported. “We had a team meeting afterward for 2 hours until they finally kicked us out of the pavilion. Basically, Brian sat us down and told us how it was going to be - if that’s what we wanted. Practices were going to be a lot tougher. Focus was going to be a lot better.”

All this catharsis over one loss?

“We felt we were just wasting the potential that we had,” she said. “The feeling was, why not take it all? Why not have no losses, if that’s what we can do?”

At this point, there is still no telling what Barratt herself can do. The 6-foot-2 sophomore has served a two-year apprenticeship at middle blocker, generally subbing in for senior Nique Crump in Gimmillaro’s rotation.

Crump is only the national leader in hitting percentage, so for all we know Barratt might be the Swen Nater to Crump’s Bill Walton.

“I love to play, so it’s been hard for me to sit the bench,” Barratt admitted. “In high school, I was always the No. 1 player on the team, and the same on the club teams. And all of a sudden I’m here and I’m completely shut down. I wasn’t the best. And that took a lot of getting used to.”

Acceptance is not the same as resignation, however.

“I had to tell myself I’m sitting for one of the best teams in the nation,” she reasoned. “My options were to go somewhere else and play and maybe be the best player on a team that wasn’t so good, or earn what playing time I could on a great team.

“Basically, I’ve got to take advantage of every practice because next year when Nique leaves, it’s up to me - and I don’t want anyone else taking my spot.”

Effort is probably not an issue - not for the player Gillis could only chase out of the gym by shutting off the lights, or for the girl who would then go home and serve 200 balls off the roof of her garage in the dark, set herself and then spike them back.

The 49ers have reminded one another that the school’s other two titles came four years apart, and that the cycle is up again in Spokane. And since spiriting the trophy out of California is harder than listening to AM radio without getting a headache, we’re already hearing that the Stanford-Beach semifinal Thursday is really the title match.

An assumption Brandy Barratt will not indulge, for reasons of her own.

“The Arena was built my senior year at Gonzaga Prep,” she said. “Our team went undefeated in the GSL - 16-0 - and made it to regionals. And then we lost. All year long we were rated No. 1 to win the state championship, and then it was over.

“I never got a chance to play in the Arena. I’ve been waiting two years for this.”

Cultivating that seed of hope.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review

You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review