SHORELINE — Following in the oversized footsteps of the NBA, Shorecrest girls basketball scouts scoured the overseas market in the offseason in search of some Euro flavor to add to their lineup.
Well, not exactly.
It turns out Scots coach Don Dalziel was only kidding about the $500,000 he anteed up to obtain the services of Janina Boecherer, a German exchange student who is providing Shorecrest a spark off the bench.
As the Scots gear up for another postseason run, the 5-foot-9 junior guard from Langen, a small town near Frankfurt, is taking on a more prominent role in Shorecrest’s offense.
“She has the skills to shoot the basketball as good as anybody on our team, but it’s all the other stuff. It’s learning our defense, it’s learning the sets we run and why we run them. That’s been the challenging thing for her,” Dalziel said.
“It’s taken about half the season for her to get all that underneath her belt. Now we’re finally in a spot where we can use her as an offensive threat off the bench. It’s very helpful.”
Splitting her time between the junior varsity and varsity ranks, Boecherer appeared in just four of Shorecrest’s first 10 varsity games. But as of late, her JV shifts have diminished, leaving her eligible for more varsity minutes.
Boecherer, 16, saw her first significant varsity action in a narrow victory over Everett last week and lit up the Seagulls from long range. After draining four 3-pointers in one quarter of the JV game she added three more in the second period of the varsity game and finished with a season-high 11 points.
“It was my best night,” Boecherer said.
Like the English language, which she speaks more eloquently than some who have been here all their lives, the 3-point shot came naturally to Boecherer.
She connected on six 3-pointers in one half against Jackson’s JV squad and the first points she scored in America came off a play that was designed to get her an open look from behind the arc.
“The girls love to get her the ball. They scream for her to shoot,” Shorecrest JV coach Shannon Iredale said. “It is so nice to know that more than half the time she puts up a shot you are guaranteed points.”
Boecherer’s mechanics are by the book, but she credits her lights-out shooting touch to a lighter ball.
“The ball in Germany is bigger and heavier for the girls,” she said. “Now it’s way easier for me to make my 3-pointers. That helped out a lot.”
There have been other distinctions and rule changes Boecherer has adjusted to, like a longer shotclock, shorter quarters and a slightly faster game pace.
“It took her awhile to adjust to the flow of the game,” Dalziel said. “We’ve never been a team that’s really walked the ball up the floor. The first couple weeks of practice she couldn’t believe the amount of running we were doing. That was one of those things where she had to get used to our style of play.”
Dalziel commended Boecherer for picking up the intricacies of Shorecrest’s on-the-go offense and various defensive schemes in a relatively short time.
“It’s difficult for any first-year player to come into our system because of the amount of stuff you have to learn, let alone somebody who comes in from a different country,” he said.
Prior to her participation in the student exchange program, the longest Boecherer had spent away from her family was six weeks. At the end of the summer, the Boecherers are planning a two-week road trip along the West Coast before flying home.
Boecherer has already checked out several of the local hotspots and caught a Sonics game. Her opinion of life in and around Seattle echoed the sentiment of most first-time visitors.
“It rains a lot, but it’s a pretty city,” she said. “I really like it.”
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