Harvest Time -- Ritzville's Wellsandt Becomes Ritziest WSU Player

When Darci Wellsandt was a 4-year-old on her family's Ritzville wheat farm, her mother told her not to go near a big hole being dug for a new fuel tank. Darci couldn't resist the temptation and fell into the hole.

She wasn't injured, but she was scolded.

Tonight, another "hole" beckons - the Washington State basket in Edmundson Pavilion, where the Cougars try to snap a 21-game losing streak to the Washington Huskies.

This is one hole that Wellsandt is encouraged to visit.

WSU Coach Harold Rhodes says if the Cougars (4-11 Pac-10, 11-13 overall) are going to beat the Huskies (7-8, 15-10), Wellsandt must have a good game.

"She has to play well," said Rhodes, who never has beaten the Huskies in his 10 seasons as Cougar coach.

Wellsandt, a 5-foot-9 junior forward, has led the Cougars in scoring in seven of their past nine games. She is averaging 13.4 points and 4.4 rebounds for the season.

Equally important is her ability to score and set up teammates under the kind of tight man-to-man pressure UW applies.

"Darci is the only player we have who can do that," said Rhodes, who considers her the team's best athlete and player.

Wellsandt comes from hardy stock. Her brother, Doug, was a tight end on the Cougars' 1988 Aloha Bowl team and was drafted in the eighth round by the Cincinnati Bengals. He wound up as a New York Jet his rookie season, was cut last year, and recently signed as a free agent with Miami.

Doug's legs were run over by a combine's wheels in the summer wheat harvest of 1986, but he just got up and walked away.

Darci is a competent harvest truck driver herself. But by the time she was in high school, she often wasn't home for the harvest. More often, she was in Europe with all-star volleyball or basketball teams, or competing in track.

She said she was never bored growing up on the farm and delighted in wandering into the barn, examining items stored by her grandmother - "old antique stuff, like old bottles," she said.

Doug and Darci are the best athletes to come from Ritzville, a rural community of 1,800 about 60 miles west of Spokane. Each won 12 varsity letters at the Class B school and assorted state track and field titles. Darci was a two-time state champion high jumper (5 feet 5) and long jumper (17-5 3/4).

Wellsandt also played volleyball during her sophomore year at WSU. When that season ended, Rhodes not-so-gently reminded her that she had been brought to Pullman to help improve the basketball program, not to be a multi-sport athlete.

"That message wasn't received with the cheeriest of ears," said Rhodes.

The Cougars are on a five-game losing streak (the Huskies have dropped four straight), but the most difficult thing in Darci's life the past few weeks hasn't been a basketball defeat. A cousin, Jason, with whom she was close, died of a heart condition at New Mexico State University, where he was a student. He was playing intramural basketball when he collapsed.

This season has been a disappointment for the Cougars, who were coming off an 18-11 campaign and their first NCAA tournament appearance. The team has been jinxed by injuries, with four players out for the season and others suffering nagging injuries. Darci missed two games in December with a separated shoulder.

The Huskies have enough problems to be considered vulnerable, but they won Feb. 7 in Pullman, 73-63.

Darci said the UW encounter "isn't any more special than any other Pac-10 game."

Sure. And Ritzville is the capital of France.

Pac-10 women

-- AT USC 98, NO. 24 ASU 65 - Lisa Leslie scored a season-high 31 points and added 11 rebounds to lead USC (11-4, 18-7) over Arizona State (9-6, 18-7). The Trojans had their highest output since scoring 106 points in 1989.

Top 10 women -- AT NO. 8 IOWA 73, NORTHWESTERN 65 - Laurie Aaron had seven assists and 19 points, 11 on free throws in the closing seconds, as Iowa (14-2, 23-3) rallied for a Big Ten win.

Northwest women

-- SIMON FRASER 77, AT KENNESAW ST. 40 - Michelle Hendry scored 24 points and blocked four shots for top-seeded Simon Fraser in the second round of the NAIA Division I tournament.