Indians pursue first state berth
Walk into North Central’s gym and you’ll see boys and girls sports listed on a wall with various league, district, regional and state accomplishments.
One sport is conspicuously absent. Girls basketball has had the least success at North Central.
The Indians are out to change that this season – especially senior standouts Riley Holsinger and Tara Van Weerdhuizen.
No NC girls team has qualified for state.
Coach Gabe Medrano wasn’t aware that NC had never been to state when he took over as head coach last year. It wouldn’t have kept him from taking the job had he known, though.
Medrano started the building process with something he thought could have an immediate impact – defense.
“I looked up all the scores from the year before and opponents averaged 66 points against us,” Medrano said.
NC cut that down to 44 per game last year. The Indians tightened things up more this season, allowing just 39 ppg.
The Indians went from 3-22 two years ago to 12-11 last season, matching the school record for victories.
NC, 12-7 overall and 11-6 in league, can break the record with a win tonight or in the District 8 3A tournament that begins Saturday.
The Indians want more than just 13 wins, though. NC set a much loftier goal. The Indians want a state breakthrough. And not just the first round, which will be held in Spokane. They want to go to Tacoma.
“They’ve bought in, especially on defense,” Medrano said. “It would be nice to see a payoff for their hard work.”
Holsinger, a 5-foot-10 shooting guard, and Van Weerdhuizen, a 6-1 post, have been in the middle of NC’s revival. Van Weerdhuizen is a four-year letterman and three-year starter. Holsinger, a letterman at Lewis and Clark as a sophomore, transferred to NC last year.
“I don’t know if I’d say that I’m surprised with what we’ve done,” Van Weerdhuizen said. “I know we have the ability to beat all of the (Greater Spokane League) teams.”
The Indians have had two narrow misses against league champ Gonzaga Prep, losing 49-47 in December and 38-36 in a heartbreaker Tuesday.
Holsinger, a first-team all-GSL pick last year, has averaged a team-leading 16.6 points per game, which ranks fourth in the league. She’s also averaging eight rebounds, four steals and three assists.
Van Weerdhuizen is scoring 12.1 ppg, 11th best in the GSL, to go with 12 rebounds and four blocked shots. She got off to a slow start, averaging just 6.8 points in NC’s first six games. Things turned around when she had 19 in the Indians’ 44-40 win over Central Valley in early January.
“I think part of it was I lacked a little confidence in my scoring ability,” Van Weerdhuizen said. “He (Medrano) pushed me to score and not to pass it out like I had been doing.”
After three straight losses to end December, NC has gone 9-3.
Scoring has been difficult to come by at times. NC averages 46 per game. The Indians’ seven losses have come by a combined 41 points.
“We haven’t been very good offensively, but our defense brings us our offense,” Holsinger said.
NC posted its first win over Shadle Park since 2005 last week, snapping a 14-game losing skid. The Indians followed it up with an overtime decision over Lewis and Clark.
“Defense is what we hang our hat on, and it keeps us in a lot of games,” Medrano said.