After full year away, Evergreen's Woods hardly skips a beat

THE OLYMPIAN | • Published January 27, 2010

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This is what she missed.

The comeback wins, the practices, the huddles with her teammates during a timeout, the shot coming off a screen.

After sitting out of basketball a year, working 60 hours a week driving a forklift, Latrina Woods has learned to appreciate the game of basketball.

She’s back.

And the time away hasn’t hurt her game.

Woods, as a junior guard for The Evergreen State College, leads her team in scoring (13.9), shooting percentage (.454), assists (76), steals (61) and minutes played (34.9).

“Every win. Every loss. It hits me more now,” Woods said. “The time away and what I’ve sacrificed to get back into it makes me appreciate it more.”

Woods’ accomplishments haven’t gone unnoticed. She was named the Cascade Conference player of the week after scoring a combined 36 points in a pair of wins last week.

Against Northwest Christian, Woods scored 21 points on 9-for-14 shooting in a 57-55 win. She came back with 15 points, eight rebounds, five assists and two steals in a 72-63 win against Corban.

“She’s one of the smoothest and most unselfish players I’ve ever coached,” Evergreen coach Monica Heuer said.

Woods didn’t take a direct route to Evergreen. She played one year at Bellevue Community College and one year at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif.

Last summer, after working for a year in a warehouse, Woods e-mailed Heuer to say she was interested in getting back into basketball. Heuer, who had watched Woods play at Meadowdale High School, invited the absent guard to some open gyms.

Woods flourished.

“Watching her play, I was impressed,” Heuer said. “It didn’t take me long to make up my mind. You could see she could still play.”

While a shooter and a scorer, Woods doesn’t have the scorer’s ego.

“She has a whole lot of humility,” Heuer said. “She’s always more concerned about her teammates. She’s a great person, a great player.”

Heuer wasn’t sure how she was going to announce to the team about Woods being named player of the week.

“Latrina is very soft spoken,” Heuer said. “She’s not going to feel comfortable with me announcing she won this award. She knows what she has as a player, but she’s very humble.”

And not a bad shooter, either.

Woods, who is studying to become a physical therapist, has led her team in scoring in 13 of 22 games, helping the Geoducks to an 8-14 record overall and a 6-6 mark in the conference.

“There’s no one who can stop her one-on-one,” Heuer said. “She’s able to squeeze by defenders. Defensively, she wants to go after the best. There’s nothing I can say bad about her. This is a kid any coach would want on their team.”

For Heuer, it was worth the wait.

Tough crowd

The Evergreen men are one of four teams in the Cascade Conference ranked in this week’s national NAIA Division II poll.

Oregon Tech (20-3, 9-2) is ranked third, Warner Pacific (16-4, 8-2) climbed to No. 5, and Evergreen, which has won 11 of its past 13 games, jumped to No. 20.

Evergreen (16-5, 9-2) is tied with Oregon Tech for first place in the conference.

Eastern Oregon (15-6, 8-3) dropped from 18th to 24th after splitting a pair of games last week.

Sinking Saints

It was a rally with no reward.

The Saint Martin’s men trailed at Alaska Fairbanks by 21 points on Saturday night but rallied to take a four-point lead late in the game.

Fairbanks scored the final five points to pull out a 77-76 win, sending the Saints to their fifth straight loss.

In the closing seconds, SMU guard Galen Squiers missed two free throws. But it was Squiers who helped put the Saints ahead by scoring 18 of his 20 points in the second half. The Saints took a five-point lead on Squiers’ four-point play with 2:18 left.

SMU went 2-for-19 from the field to start the game and fell behind, 24-4.

Coach on the rise

Tiffany Darling has made a quick ascent in her coaching career.

Four years ago, Darling was an assistant coach at Saint Martin’s. She’s now the head women’s coach at New Mexico Highlands, an NCAA Division II program in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

In 2006, Darling left SMU to become the head coach at Peninsula Community College in Port Angeles, where she compiled a 24-26 record in two seasons.

Gail Wood: 360-754-5443

gwood@theolympian.com

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