At a school known for excellent sport teams, women’s basketball has been one of the most successful teams at Pacific Lutheran in the past decade. The Lutes have won five Northwest Conference championships since the 1998 season and on the national level have twice advanced as far as the NCAA Division III Elite Eight.

This season, Pacific Lutheran ushers in a new era as Kelly Warnke takes over as head coach. Warnke brings with her eight years of college assistant coaching experience in which she helped teams to three conference championships and one NCAA Elite Eight finish. Most recently, Warnke served as an assistant coach at Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio, where in the past two seasons the women’s basketball program won 46 and lost 12.

The 2007-08 Lutes will have to make up for the loss of Nikki Johnson, the 2006 NWC Player of the Year. Johnson averaged 15.2 points per game and 8.7 rebounds per game last season on her way to earning first team all-conference honors. Also gone to graduation is Kezia Long, who averaged 9.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game last season. Long leaves the program ranked third on the all-time career rebounds list with 695 in her four years at PLU.

The top returning scorers from last season are seniors Trish Buckingham and Kyle Haag. Buckingham is a steady player who earned honorable mention all-conference honors after averaging 7.1 points and 3.0 rebounds per game. “(Trish) utilizes her strength and knowledge of the game very well,” said Warnke. “She has a passion for the game, and she’s a competitor who works hard every day in practice, and that elevates the team focus.”

Haag, a 5-9 guard, is a threat from behind the three-point arc as she hit a team-high .347 percent (37-for-107) while averaging 5.5 points per game. “Kyle worked hard on her game over the summer. She is a good three-point shooter, but she has expanded her game and can get the ball into the paint and either get off a shot or dish it,” said Warnke.

Returning starter Trinity Gibbons will occupy the point guard position this year. Gibbons, a junior, played in all 24 games last season, starting in 13, and she figures to play a more prominent scoring role this season. “Trinity understands what our team needs at different points in the game,” said Warnke. “Trinity as a point guard is my connection on the floor, and she wants to lead this team.”

Junior post Melissa Richardson, who has been a solid defender and rebounder during her first two seasons, is the top returnee in rebounding with an average of 3.7 per game last year. Emily Voorhies, a 6-1 junior post who has been slowed in recent years by a rash of injuries, is poised to have a strong year for the Lutes. Sophomore Meghan Dowling, another 6-1 post, missed last season with an injury and should provide excellent depth on the front line. The Lutes will need those three, along with Buckingham, to provide a scoring threat in the low post in order to open up scoring opportunities on the perimeter.

Two other juniors, Nikki Scott and Amy Spieker, will provide depth in the guard position. Scott and Gibbons are both capable of playing either guard position, and Scott averaged 3.2 points while starting nine games last season.

Newcomers include freshman Ellise Parr and junior Amanda Tschauner. Parr, a freshman guard from Portland, was first team all-league at Cleveland High School. Tschauner, a junior guard, has been a goalkeeper for the Pacific Lutheran women’s soccer team and is playing collegiate basketball for the first time.

The PLU squad is low on numbers with only 10 players on the roster (freshman guard Cheryl Burris will not play after injuring her knee during the soccer season), and the conference coaches have picked the Lutes to finish seventh in the nine-team Northwest Conference. While those facts may be daunting for some, the 2007-08 Lutes are ready to answer the challenge of competing well in the tough Northwest Conference.

“They don’t know what to expect from us because we are a completely different team from last year,” said Warnke, who acknowledged that the Lutes lost some outstanding talent from last year’s team that finished 13-11 overall and 8-8 and in a fifth-place tie in the conference. “But me not knowing exactly what we lost, I build from what we have, and I like what we have a lot.”

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