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Kristi Kingma is excited about her first season at Washington, which officially kicked off Sunday against Gonzaga.
Kingma, who said she’s wanted to be a Husky her whole life, was not only eager to play her first game for Washington. She’s also looking forward to seeing what will happen when she dedicates herself to one sport.
For as long as she can remember, Kingma has been a multi-sport athlete, exchanging soccer cleats for high tops, trading a basketball for track spikes. That’s just how life has been for Kingma and her sports-loving family of seven.
Until now, that is. When Kingma finished her track season at Jackson High School last spring, she became a basketball player for good. Instead of spending her summer gearing up for soccer season, Kingma started getting ready for her first year of college basketball.
“I didn’t really know what to expect,” said Kingma, a 5-foot-10 guard who was also recruited by colleges for soccer. “Being a three-sport athlete, I’ve just gone sport to sport my whole life, and I really didn’t know what it would be like to put all of my everything, all of my heart, all of my hard work into basketball.
“Coming in here, I guess I’ve proven to myself that focusing just on basketball, I can elevate my game more than I thought I could. I think it’s been really good for me just to play basketball. I’ve gotten to put my whole mind into playing basketball and not having to worry that in three months I’m playing soccer or whatever. It’s been an adjustment; I do miss soccer, I do miss track, but it’s awesome just to play one.”
The singular focus on basketball is paying off for Kingma. In the Huskies first exhibition game, Kingma, admittedly nervous, scored nine points in 29 minutes on 2-for-11 shooting.
Kingma settled down in Washington’s next exhibition game, however, and looked more like the scorer that the Huskies were hoping to get when they signed her. In an easy win over Corban College, Kingma hit eight of 15 shots, three of four 3-pointers on the way to 22 points in just 23 minutes.
“She’s a scorer and we’re really going to look to utilize that this year,” junior forward Sami Whitcomb said. “She can score any way she wants, off the dribble, finish for a layup, 3s, whatever. She’s just a really poised player for being so new to the program. She plays like a senior.”
A scorer is what Washington coach Tia Jackson expected to get when she recruited Kingma, who broke a state tournament record with a 43-point game last March. And the second-year Washington coach doesn’t worry about putting expectations on her freshman starter.
“She’ll be a scorer for us,” Jackson said. “She’s very good and we expect her to continue to build on what you saw in the state playoffs last year, and that was her setting a record with 43 points. She’s every bit of that and then some.”
Kingma found it a bit difficult at first to accept that role as a newcomer, but as she has gotten more comfortable with her teammates, she has learned to assert herself and take on the role Jackson planned for her.
“I was a little nervous about it at first, I’m not going to lie,” Kingma said. “I came in and from day one, that’s what she told me. Obviously as a freshman you’re wide-eyed, everything is new, but as I began to practice, my teammates, especially the upperclassmen, just really gave me all the confidence in the world. They were like, ‘Hey, you’re a freshman, but if you’re better than them, you’re better than them.’ I’ve really tried to take that mindset onto the court. I’m not going to back down from anyone.”
I may not be the tallest or the strongest player, but I’m never going to back down, that’s just not part of who I am.”
As her confidence grows, Kingma should only become more comfortable in her role as one of the team’s go-to scorers along with Whitcomb. And because she’s still in her first year as a basketball-only athlete, Kingma should only continue to improve.
“One of the conversations we had in the spring was that she couldn’t wait to just focus on basketball,” Jackson said. “So now that she’s able to do that, you haven’t even seen the best of her. It looks pretty exciting for everybody involved.”
John Boyle writes for The Herald in Everett.
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