A Net Asset At Mead Bailey Has Turned Self Into A Dominant Player

Allie Bailey spent the fall trying to keep the ball out of the net. She’ll spend the winter trying to put it in.

That shouldn’t be a problem for the Mead senior.

“She’s definitely going to be a big scorer,” new Panthers basketball coach Beth Wing said. “She’s quick, she’s lanky, she can get up on the boards.”

That’s exactly what Jeanne Helfer is afraid of.

The former Mead coach, who has moved over to Mt. Spokane, is a big Bailey fan.

“Allie Bailey has tremendous athletic ability; unbelievable,” Helfer said. “She was really, really raw. She has worked herself, as everybody will see, into a tremendous player.”

Unfortunately for Helfer and her young Wildcats, they’ll see Bailey all too soon. The Greater Spokane League season opens Friday night and Mead visits Mt. Spokane.

Bailey, the goalkeeper for the Mead soccer team that finished second in the state last month, was a second team All-GSL basketball player last season, but she doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about.

“I kind of lucked out and had a good year,” the 5-foot-11 post said.

“It’s nice people noticed me, but I’m going to work hard. It’s an honor, but it has a lot to do with your team backing you up.”

Bailey, who is also a state-qualifying jumper in track, won’t rest on her laurels.

“You can always get better at everything,” she said. “I don’t know what my strengths are. I really want to work on increasing my shooting range, have tenacious defense, be all over the place.”

Helfer said, “She needs to become what we call a post player with her back to the basket. She’s tremendous on put-backs and rebounds. We would have challenged Allie to develop a bigger repertoire of low block moves.

“She probably already has.”

Wing is counting on that, and much more.

“She will be a key in defensive transition. She’ll have to be in a lot of places at once. She’s athletic enough to do it,” Wing said. “She is not only a great athlete, anyone would notice that, but she is quality… . She’s a natural leader out there; she’s intense, she tries to get everyone involved.”

Helfer saw that when Bailey was a sophomore. The Panthers won the state title that year, but Bailey stayed on the junior varsity.

“She learned so much her sophomore year,” Helfer said. “In most years, she would have been a girl you brought up. We were pretty deep that year; we just chose to keep that group together. That was not a putdown to Allie; we don’t do that as a token thing. We were waiting for her basketball ability to catch up with her athletic ability.”

It has, and no one is surprised.

“She’s very intense, very driven to succeed,” Helfer said. “It was just a matter of time and it didn’t take long. There were times her junior year she came in and just took control.

“She has great what I call a sixth sense. She has so much natural ability. She knows where the ball is and is there before anyone else.”

Bailey has lofty goals this season, but they aren’t personal.

“I want to have a great year, of course. I just hope we play well as a team,” she said. “I think we have a good team and we can do great things. It doesn’t matter if we have new coaches.

“Almost everything is new … you’ve just got to get used to it. My position doesn’t change, but my role on defense changes a lot.”

The transition to Wing, who was in the program two years before Helfer moved, isn’t major.

“She still gets on us, but I don’t feel quite as intimidated,” Bailey said. “Jeanne wasn’t mean, but she was more vocal than Beth.”

Actually, Bailey is following in Helfer’s footsteps for accepting a challenge. She decided to be part of helping Eastern Washington rebuild its basketball team, signing with the Eagles last month.

“I did want to stay close to home, but I got a good feeling about it,” she said. “They might not be the best team in the league, but there’s room for improvement. I think the coaches are good. I like them. I think they’ll do a good job.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo