Hunch Pays Off For Whits

Coach Helen Higgs was think- ing ahead. The Whitworth women’s basketball team was playing at Willamette in the final regular-season game and Higgs decided to limit her oft-injured, but reliable rebounder, Jennifer Bennett, to just 4 minutes.

Higgs’ intuition was right. The Pirates found out 24 hours later their season will live on at the NCAA Division III Tournament.

“When we went down to Willamette, someone told us we had a pretty good shot,” said the sixth-year coach, who has not taken a team to the postseason since her rookie year.

The Pirates will travel to Pacific Lutheran and play the Lutes in a first-round game Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Last season, the Lutes were the only Northwest Conference team to make the field of 50 and got as far as the quarterfinals.

This year, the selection committee thought highly enough of the conference to reward co-champions George Fox (21-4) and Pacific Lutheran (19-5) as well as third-place finishers Whitworth (18-7) and Linfield (17-8) with at-large bids. The NWC, a second-year D III member, does not have an automatic berth this season.

PLU beat Whitworth twice this season - 55-50 at PLU and 77-66 in Spokane - and has won five of the last six games between the schools. Three weeks ago in Spokane, the Lutes’ best shooter, center Tara Millet, scored 22 points. Whitworth star guard Jamie Wakefield countered with 25.

“We haven’t beaten them there forever,” Higgs said. “We got within five (Jan. 8) points. I think my players believe they can beat them there.”

Notes

Wakefield, a junior forward, was named to the All-NWC first team Monday. The Mead graduate is third in the league in scoring (13.8 ppg) and second in rebounding (8.9 rpg)… . Star Olson was named to the second team and Emily Stuenckel honorable mention. Both are senior guards… . On the All-NWC men’s team, Whitworth senior forward Kevin McDaniel was named to the second team and junior guard Ryan Nelson was honorable mention.