Whit Senior Rises To Challenge Undersized Center Sherer Leads Bucs
By her own admission, Andrea Sherer’s senior-season goals were about as defined as a Beanie Baby’s muscles.
“I really didn’t have any,” said Sherer, who plays center on the Whitworth College women’s basketball team.
“I was kinda nervous about the whole thing.”
Her jitters and fuzzy forecast certainly had Pirates’ coach Helen Higgs wondering.
“I was really worried about her senior year,” said the fourth-year coach. “She didn’t have any goals and here I am thinking, ‘this is supposed to be my best player?”’
Turns out, Sherer has been the Pirates’ top player, sandwiched between a strong supporting cast that has Whitworth at 8-11 overall, but more importantly, 7-6 in the Northwest Conference of Independent Colleges. A successful stretch drive and it’s not unthinkable for the Pirates to qualify for the league’s four-team postseason tournament that begins Feb. 25 at the top two schools’ gyms.
After dropping two on the road last weekend, the Pirates begin a three-game homestand tonight against Whitman.
Entering last weekend, Sherer was leading her team in points per game (14.5) and rebounding (8.0). This year, the 5-foot-9 center is no longer playing in the shadow of the departed Sherri Northington or Jenn Tissue. Northington pulled down 9.8 rebounds per game last year and Tissue was the top scorer, averaging 14.7 points per game.
“What’s impressed me most about Andrea, looking back, is that she was willing to accept a role that wasn’t necessarily to her strength,” Higgs said. “I didn’t know how good she was in the block because she didn’t get to play there because of the offense we ran to Sherri and Tissue.”
It wasn’t always sheer joy for the Idaho athlete, who came out of Payette High as the star of the small schools. And she came with honors, beginning with Class AA Snake River Valley player of the year. She also was named as one of two small-school all-state centers, the other being Heather Owen of Moscow, now a senior on the Stanford team.
Sherer said she choose Whitworth because when she and her mother toured many of the Northwest Conference campuses, she was most impressed with the college among the pines.
“It was the first place I came,” Sherer recalled. “And we got to play with the players and the players took me out. At the other places, I just talked to the coach and that was it.”
Although Higgs didn’t recruit Sherer - both came the same year - Sherer fought her way into Higgs’ starting lineup as a freshman role player. Her lower back began acting up her sophomore year, forcing her to miss a few games and eventually lose her starting spot when she returned.
She was the team’s second best rebounder her junior year (6.3) and chipped in with 7.7 points, but still, there was a lot to prove.
Said Higgs: “I told her, ‘You can be our leading scorer, but you’ve got to make 50 percent of your shots. I’ll get you the shots, but you need to hit ‘em, or we can’t run stuff for you.”’
Sherer responded, and has raised her 35.7 career-shooting percentage to 46.7 this season.
As for the goals, now she’s talking.
“I knew that I needed to get eight rebounds per game and I’m finally doing that,” she said. “I knew I could be the high scorer because I did that two games as a freshman. But I didn’t know if I could do it game in and game out.”
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MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TONIGHT Whitman at Whitworth women at 6; men at 8