Box Score

By Ben Zimmerman

WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- It surfaced again on Friday, a trend that has colored more and more Whitman victories as the Northwest Conference schedule reaches midseason boil.

The Missionaries are putting teams away with depth.

And with each victory and signature knockout run therein, it becomes more and more fair -- and fun, for the Missionaries -- to contemplate whether their bench could contend for a conference playoff spot on its own.

"They would tell you, 'Yes,'" said Whitman head coach Michelle Ferenz, after her third-ranked charges remained undefeated by subduing Lewis and Clark 78-61 in front of a raucous Sherwood Center crowd on Friday. "I like that about them."

Go ahead, dust any of the game's pivotal sequences for fingerprints. You'll narrow the field of Whitman suspects to "everyone."

"We're a veteran team, but for a while, we'd really been relying on our starters," Ferenz said. "We're starting to get a lift off the bench, and that's important for the rest of our conference schedule."

The rise of Whitman's reserves has also helped its starters to conserve energy and play loose, added senior post Sarah Anderegg, whose all-American candidacy took a strong, graceful stride forward on Friday.

"We started the season with a few injuries, and we've been nursing some injuries, but pretty much everyone is in good health now," Anderegg said. "We've been working on getting everyone game-ready. We're halfway through conference, and I think we've achieved that."

Take the ensemble cast driving Whitman's 24-5 run over the final 8:30 of the first half, whether it was helping to twist the defensive tourniquet, swarming the glass, or popping 3-pointers to cheat the shot clock.

The Missionaries (17-0, 8-0) trailed 19-18 when reserve Alysse Ketner funneled in a 3-pointer off an assist from starter Heather Johns. After Ketner scrapped for one of Whitman's 13 offensive rebounds, reserve Chelsi Brewer measured and drained a 3-pointer. Backup power forward Hailey Ann

After a steal by starter Tiffani Traver, reserve Hallie Buse scored on a put-back, then Traver hit a 3 (more on that later). Point guard understudy Marah Alingdon forced a turnover to set up a possession capped by an Anderegg jumper, Anderegg hit two free throws, Alingdon forced another turnover, Buse tallied inside, and Traver canned a long 3-pointer just before the halftime horn. An offensive rebound by Brewer, who found Traver alone at the top of the circle, had kept that possession alive.

"The last four games have been so close together, we couldn't afford to have our starters playing over 30 minutes," said Anderegg, whose double-double (16 points, 10 rebounds) was emblematic of Whitman's control of the paint. "Everyone else put in extra work; we knew we'd have to rely on them. They really stepped up.

"That gives the starters a break," she added. "It lets us go 100 percent."

The run to close the half featured the deepest roll-call of Whitman starters and reserves alike, but it wasn't enough to permanently banish the plucky Pioneers. An 8-0 Lewis and Clark burst after recess cut Whitman's lead to 44-32, and eight points by Pioneer Tayler Wang (game-high 24 points) further chiselled the lead to 50-42 with 12:54 left to play.

White had eight of her 11 points, Traver eight of her 17, Ketner five of her 10 and Johns and Anderegg four apiece down the stretch -- four starters and a reserve accelerating to the finish stripe with plenty of fuel in the tank.

"We've talked a lot about how to get better. How we get better is we need to get deeper," said Ferenz. "We're getting healthier, and we're playing basketball; everyone knows their stuff, now we just have to make reads."

"I'm real excited about the way we played," Ferenz said. "(Lewis and Clark) is a good team."

The Missionaries snapped the Pioneers' three-game winning streak. They host Pacific on Jan. 31.