Role Player to Star: W.F. West Product Katie Hankins in the Spotlight at LCC

Saturday night was a homecoming, of sorts, for Katie Hankins, and the 2014 W.F. West High School graduate was just a tad bit nervous.

“I haven’t really been stressed for a game all year, even though we’ve played some tough teams,” Hankins, a starting forward for Lower Columbia College’s women’s basketball team, said. “But obviously, coming home and playing in Centralia, where I know I’m going to have a lot of family and friends here, is a little difficult. So I was a little nervous.”

Hankins scored 26 points — one off her career high — and went 11 of 18 from the field, with nine rebounds, as her Red Devils won, 65-58, in a battle of the two best teams in the NWAC West Region.

“She’s a great kid. Obviously, we don’t like seeing her in a Red Devil uniform, but if there’s another program that she needed to play for, it’d be LC,” Blazer coach Shane Schutz said. “She played well in front of her home crowd, and that’s all the effort that she’s put in to become a better basketball player.”

If there were any nerves, they certainly weren’t warranted. Especially not the way Hankins has been playing.

The biggest accolade of Hankins’ prep basketball career at W.F. West came in her senior season, when she was voted to the Evergreen 2A Conference’s All-League team.

The All-League second team, to be specific.

Such was life for a 5-foot-11 forward in Chehalis at the time; Hankins, in her last two seasons, played with three forwards — Nike McClure, Tiana Parker and Julie Spencer — who would sign with NCAA Division I programs.

And so, after helping the Bearcats to a state championship her senior year, Hankins headed down Interstate 5 to Lower Columbia College, where coach Chad Meadors was — and, more importantly, is — happy to have her aboard.

Hankins is 16th in the NWAC in scoring, at 15.7 points a game, and shooting 52.2 percent from the field. Only three players in the entire NWAC are scoring more, and more efficiently, than Hankins, who has scored in double-figures every game and leads the 13-8 Red Devils in scoring (15.7 a game) and rebounding (7.5).

How important is she? Against Highline last Wednesday, Meadors said, Hankins picked up two quick fouls and sat out the majority of the first half. The Red Devils trailed by 16 at halftime, but came back to win, 57-51.

“We had a hard time playing through other people,” Meadors said. “For her to come out and get out to a good start, for us to come out and emphasize making it a point to get her the ball — we can really play at full strength, and be as good as we can be, if we’re playing through her.”

It’s high praise for a high school role player — which, Hankins is quick to admit, she was.

“In high school, I was kind of hanging out. I’d get a few rebounds here and there, get 5 points, maybe,” she said. “I’ve never been relied on as a scorer, and I’ve always had older girls to guide me — or just older girls that were so scoring-minded.”

The key, Meadors said, was helping Hankins realize that she wouldn’t be playing against a front line of 6-foot-3 players every day, in practice or on the court. Working with LCC assistant Darren Schwegler helped her find her own identity in the post, and build on a solid freshman campaign — 5.5 points, 4.4 rebounds a game — to come into her own as a sophomore.

Hankins also credits improved conditioning and confidence for the improvement.

“It’s a lot different for me, but I think I’ve been able to take on the role, and I’ve done the job, for the most part, this season,” she said. “As long as I stay out of foul trouble.”

Hankins has no definite plans for playing once her time’s up in Longview, beyond finding a situation with which she’s happy.

Meaders, though, said there’s no doubt Hankins can play at the next level.

“Finding a 6-foot post player that can fill it up — she’s shooting 53 percent from the field, and most of her game is in that mid-range, she’s super effective there — that’s unheard of,” he said. “This is not your normal post player. We’ll have no problem finding a (NCAA Div. II) place for her to play, where she’s going to win, and where she’s going to play a lot of minutes.”