Mead Grad Helps Whits Chase Title

Is it any wonder former Mead High role player Jamie Wakefield continues to be the go-to gal on the improved Whitworth College team?

“She’s extremely competitive as anybody I’ve ever coached,” said Helen Higgs, Whitworth’s sixth-year coach. “You see it in every area.”

Wakefield, a 5-foot-9 junior forward, carries a 3.9 grade-point average as an education major. As an athlete, she took over as the team’s scoring leader last weekend after putting up a game-high 18 points in the Bucs’ upset win at Linfield. She’s averaging 13 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, also a team best.

“I like to work hard at anything I do,” said Wakefield, the sixth man on Mead’s Washington 4A state championship team in 1995-96.

Whitworth followed Friday’s win with another against lower-division Pacific University. Wakefield finished with nine points and 10 rebounds.

The road sweep put the Pirates at 13-6 overall and 7-3 in the Northwest Conference with six conference games remaining. George Fox, Linfield and Pacific Lutheran are ahead of the Pirates, but a 6-0 finish would give Whitworth a share of the title for the first time since winning the conference outright in 1994-95.

Conceivably, four teams could finish at 13-3.

“I’ve never been on a team that’s as close as this one as far as basketball,” Wakefield said. “I felt like we finally played to our potential (against Linfield).”

The NWC doesn’t have a year-end conference tournament for women and will not get an automatic bid into the 48-team Division III NCAA Tournament. But small-college folks in the Northwest are confident at least one school will be invited. Last year, tourney rep PLU got to the quarterfinals and lost on a last-second shot.

The Lutes (13-5, 8-2) are next for Whitworth on Friday with lowly Puget Sound (8-10, 2-7) coming in Saturday.

Kerns stressed out

Washington State senior guard Jen Kerns, hampered by a stress fracture in her leg, is listed as “highly probable” in games at Arizona State (11-8, 4-5 Pacific-10 Conference) tonight and No. 16 Arizona (18-3, 7-2) Saturday.

Kerns, of Coeur d’Alene, has played inspired ball all season on a Cougars team that takes a 4-15, 1-8 record to the desert. She’s averaging 11.7 points per game, second best on the team behind Alke Dietel.

Kerns also is second in minutes played (533), despite missing last Sunday’s disaster at Seattle, where the Cougs blew an 18-point lead.

“It was very apparent we needed her (Kerns) in there,” WSU coach Jenny Przekwas said.

Hardly the pits

Gonzaga Prep graduate Jennifer Williams and her University of New Mexico teammates have got to be loving it. The Lobos (14-6, 5-2 Mountain West), played before 18,018 fans last Saturday on Pack the Pit night, when they went on to beat Brigham Young 65-59. It was the second largest crowd in women’s college basketball this season and tied a Lobos record.

Williams, a 6-foot junior post, has started in 18 of 20 games and is averaging 8.1 points on 57.1 percent shooting and 4.2 rebounds per game. Theresa Palmer, the other half of G-Prep’s “Twin Towers” of the 1996-97 season, will be in town tonight when improved Loyola Marymount (12-9, 5-3 West Coast Conference) meets Gonzaga (9-12, 2-6). The 6-1 Palmer is averaging 1 point per game on 7.6 minutes, but has been coming on of late.

3-pointers

Eastern Washington senior Tracy Ford Phelps scored her 1,000th career point last weekend and now stands at 1,022. Eagles coach Jocelyn Pfeifer hopes to have freshman Janelle Ruen back by next week’s road trip. The two-sports athlete has not played since Jan. 20 because of foot sprain and ankle injury that has had her on crutches and in a shoe boot. Fellow dual-sport teammate Jennifer Gabel decided to stick to volleyball and left the basketball team Jan. 24. EWU, hanging around the Big Sky Tournament cutoff spot of sixth place, is idle this week… . Idaho senior Susan Woolf, also in the 1,000-point club at 1,170, is closing in on eighth place on the Vandals’ all-time points list… . For the sixth straight week, Lewis-Clark State (20-0, 7-0 Frontier League) is ranked sixth in the NAIA Division I poll.