SEATTLE — Sarah Morton saw her first action in four games Thursday night and made the most of it.
Summoned with four of her teammates to play kamikaze defense by an angry Washington Huskies coach Tia Jackson, Morton entered the game against Arizona State with the Sun Devils up 48-39 and 7:14 to play.
The group immediately produced multiple defensive stops and cut the ASU lead to four two minutes later.
In a 21/2-minute stretch, Morton, a freshman backup point guard from Monroe High School, contributed six points and an assist, along with a damaging turnover that led to a Sun Devil bucket.
Few cared about the turnover. It was obvious that Morton was getting it. Months of coaching and prodding finally pushed Morton to a level of play that gave Jackson confidence in her. She ran the offense. She made good decisions. She played defense.
When Jackson took her out of the game, an exultant UW bench surrounded Morton and celebrated as if she’d just been drafted by the Seattle Storm. Morton finished with six points and, more important to Jackson, four assists.
“It’s not about points,” Jackson said. “It’s never about that. She got eight points without even shooting the ball. That helps us.”
That was only one breakthrough for Jackson’s freshman class lately. Forced into playing time by both injury and a lack of veterans, June Daugherty’s final UW recruiting class may have been highly ranked by those who follow such matters, but then there’s this little issue of taking the colossal leap from high school to Division I.
To this class, every struggle is a learning experience; every step forward is cause for unbridled merriment. The Huskies are 8-13 after Saturday’s 74-59 victory against Arizona. That mark should be considerably better this time next season.
“We have the whole team supporting us, always reminding us to stay confident,” Morton said. “We’re so well-bonded. We’re so tight. Everybody encourages us. Everybody reinforces us with positive feedback.”
Morton, forward Katelan Redmon, forward-center Kali Bennett and forward-center Jess McCormack make up the brunt of a talented class that’s expected to take its lumps. The class is minus guard Candice Nichols, who returned home for personal reasons, and forward-center Mackenzie Argens, out for the season after knee surgery.
It’s a resilient group that, boosted by this Up With People environment, doesn’t stay down for long.
“It’s just all part of the season,” Redmon said. “There are going to be ups and downs. You’ve just got to go with it.”
Redmon, the Huskies’ leading scorer at 12 points a game, was scoreless in the first half Thursday night, missing all four of her shots. Yet, she finished with a solid second half with eight points and six rebounds. She followed it up Saturday with 18 points and five rebounds.
Bennett’s production has been uneven, but she came off the bench cold against ASU, immediately drained a 3-pointer and finished with nine valuable points.
It’s a group that seems to have mastered the short memories needed at the university level.
“I’ve never seen us give up,” Bennett said.
Especially intriguing is McCormack, who has missed seven games with an assortment of injuries. McCormack, 6-5, has considerable international experience as a member of New Zealand’s Senior National Team. When healthy, McCormack has been dominant, with season-highs of 17 points and 11 rebounds against UC-Davis.
After missing three straight games because of a concussion, McCormack came back Saturday with 15 points and eight rebounds against Arizona.
“Jess is always a target for us,” Jackson said. “She’s a monstrous rebounder. She gets a hand on them, she snatches them and brings them in. She’s a great target inside, a great finisher. That’s her role. She knows she’s a low-post presence and we want to get the ball to her there.”
They’re the future in UW women’s basketball. They’re struggling now. They’re learning. It’s a process.
Yet, the feeling is that sooner rather than later, the learning will catch up with the talent. It’s already happening. The blowouts are less frequent. The play is less ratty.
“Once we figure it out, it’s a nightmare for the rest of the world,” Jackson said.
Sports columnist John Sleeper: sleeper@heraldnet.com. For Sleeper[`]s blog, “Dangling Participles,” go to www.heraldnet.com/danglingparticiples.
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