Besides the hot shooting of the Coyotes, LCSC was also plagued by foul trouble in the first half, but the Warriors answered in the second half with good shooting of their own and good ball control. LCSC finished with 10 turnovers and only a three of them came in the second half.

The Warriors continue their tournament play on Saturday with a 5 p.m. match against Northwest University.

Led by Stohr’s 6-of-8 day from the field coupled with the 3-for-3 effort of Tasha Bishop and the 3-for-4 performance from Lauren Daling, the Warriors used a 53.5 (23-of-43) shooting percentage to outpace the Pirates who shot only 35.3 percent (18-of-51).

Lewis-Clark State, ranked No. 16 nationally in NAIA Div. I, led by as many as 16 points in the first half and was up 36-25 at intermission.

Whitworth, an NCAA Div. III school, rallied early in the second half, trimming its deficit to six points at 44-38 with more than 12 minutes still left to play. However, Tasha Bishop helped stem the tide for Lewis-Clark State, scoring the next five points as the Warriors pushed their lead back into double digits. Bishop finished with 12 points and was 2-for-2 from 3-point territory.

Cassie Pilkinton was the only Pirate to reach double figures in scoring. She led Whitworth, which is now 0-1, with 10 points and shared the team high of four rebounds with Natalie Orrell.

LCSC committed 19 turnovers, but forced 23. Stohr led the Warriors with three steals, while Kenna Reiter and Nikki DePeel contributed two apiece. Reiter also had five assists.

Alyssa Fierro, a 6-foot-2 sophomore post, contributed nine points and three rebounds with three of her points coming via a 3-pointer with four minutes left in the first half. After going 0-for-3 from behind the arc in 31 games last year, Friday’s shot was Fierro’s first trey as a Warrior.

But then something called life happened.

On Sunday, the Greenys’ doctor put things on hold because he was busy with other births. Then the NAIA first-round pairings came out that night and the Warriors wound up being the highest-ranked team that had to go on the road. It was expected that the No. 13-24 teams would get to host first-round matches, but that wasn’t the case for the No. 21 Warriors.

Jennifer returned to work on Monday to prepare for the No. 13-ranked Raiders when her water broke around noon and she gave birth that afternoon to the couples’ second daughter. Amazingly, Jennifer was back at practice by Wednesday and then rode with her parents and her new daughter to Ashland on Friday, a 500-plus mile jaunt, for the match.

“I feel great,” Jennifer said. “But this is going to be a very tough match.”

The contest appears to be the featured first-round matchup because it’s the only one of the 12 that involves two ranked teams.  Southern Oregon is 24-3 on the season and received one of the eight at-large berths to the tournament after falling to College of Idaho in the Cascade Conference Tournament championship match. Southern Oregon tied College of Idaho for the regular season title with 17-1 records. Two of the team’s three losses are to College of Idaho while the other is to top-ranked Fresno Pacific.

“They are very big and athletic,” Greeny said of the Raiders. “They are just a very solid team. We are going to have to play well all-around to beat them.”

LCSC also lost to College of Idaho in a five-set thriller at its season-opening tournament and then also was swept by No. 1 Fresno Pacific a week later.  Greeny said it’s hard to make comparisons between how the teams did against common opponents because LCSC was still trying to figure out its rotations that early in the season.

If LCSC does have one advantage, it would appear to be experience. Southern Oregon is making its first trip to nationals since 2004, while LCSC is making its third straight appearance and eight players have been in this situation at least once before.

“I think the experience should help us,” Greeny said. “I think the more you go through, your level of confidence goes up. Playing in a national tournament before should help us.”

The Warriors also are coming off a pair of five-set victories from the conference tournament. The team had to show plenty of resolve after falling behind 2-0 to Carroll in the semifinals before rallying to win the final three sets.

“That should help us a lot because we know we are never out of it,” Greeny said.

The Raiders, who had a 15-match win streak snapped in the title game setback last week, is led by all-conference selections Leah Bergstrom and Chelsea Hartman. Bergstrom, a 6-foot-1 junior, is hitting .292 and averaging 2.83 kills per set, while Hartman, a 6-0 junior, is at .277 and a team-best 2.99.

Senior Anile Clemente leads the Warriors with 3.05 kills and 3.42 digs per contest, and is hitting .228.

“They seem like a very smart team so we are going to have to do the same and limit our unforced errors,” Greeny said.

The winner of this match will join the other 11 winners for the pool play portion of the tournament. The national tournament actually involves 36 teams, but the top 11 plus the national host receive a first-round bye into pool play, which is Dec. 1-5 at Sioux City, Iowa.  The 24 teams remaining will be divided into six four-team pools. Each team will play the other three from its pool and the top two teams from each pool then advance to a single-elimination bracket.

By Kurt Zimmer | Columbian

Listening to favorite music to prepare for competition is pretty standard.

Typical choices for pumping up feature thumping bass lines, pounding drums, screaming guitar riffs or a techno beat; a party anthem or something with overtly inspirational lyrics — and probably something relatively recent.

Kelsey Klettke is not typical.

She needs to calm down before running.

Carrying on a tradition passed down by her father, the Prairie High School graduate’s last song before a race is the harmonica-laced, acoustic guitar-driven "Heart of Gold" from Neil Young’s classic 1972 album "Harvest."

"Before every race I listen to ‘Heart of Gold’ and it just totally calms me down," Klettke said. "He has such a nice voice, and it just relaxes me.

"My dad tells me that his first high school meet he was going to, he was riding out there in the bus and he was nervous as hell. That was the first time he heard ‘Heart of Gold’ on the radio, and he said it completely calmed him down. Now it’s kind of like a little thing I have, a little superstitious thing. I listen to that song right before I start warming up."

After two seasons of frustrations — not qualifying for the state meet as a senior at Prairie, followed by a freshman year of college essentially wiped out by illness — Klettke is now having her best year ever.

A sophomore at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho, she earned All-Frontier Conference honors as the Warriors claimed the team title.

Now she is returning home — and she is bringing some friends with her.

Fort Vancouver National Site will soon play host to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics cross country championships.

NAIA titles and All-America status will be on the line Saturday at the 54th annual men’s meet and 30th annual women’s meet dubbed "The Finish at the Fort."

The men’s 8-kilometer (5-mile) race begins at 10:30 a.m., followed by the 5-km (3.1-mile) women’s race at 11:45 a.m.

"I’m running the fastest I’ve ever run before, so that’s a good thing," Klettke said. "This is why I’m running — to get better and improve your times. Everything’s headed in the right direction for me, and now nationals is in my hometown, so family’s going to be there and friends are going to be there. It’s exciting.

"At first, I was like, ‘Oh, we don’t get to go on a plane and go somewhere cool?’ But I’m excited. Of course I’m looking forward to going home. ... It’s just another race. Just a little bit bigger field, and more competitive."

Peaks and valleys

After running in the state championship meet in each of her first three seasons at Prairie, Klettke just missed qualifying as a senior by one place at regionals.

Her best time in high school was from her freshman year.

Klettke said she was "done with high school" as a senior after the disappointment at regionals, although she was named an All-Region runner by The Columbian.

Klettke began the recruiting process for college herself, sending LCSC a résumé.

That initiative led her to a team and a place she loves, running both cross country and track.

"After that, I was just ready for a change," Klettke said. "I wanted to get out of high school and start my running career kind of over again. I wanted it to open up a new door for me, and it did."

Everything was looking great.

But something was wrong.

"Last year coming into the season, I felt really strong and I was doing awesome," Klettke said. "I came in the first week of the season and ran a really good time, but then all of a sudden, I started to get really bad stomach aches. I wasn’t really sure what was going on with my body. I was passing out during practices. It cut my season short."

Testing determined that her body was producing too much adrenaline, which was blocking her intake of potassium and sodium.

Klettke said the doctors "weren’t 100 percent sure" why that was happening, but fluid and salt intake overcame the problem.

But a season was lost, and she had to again rejuvenate her running career.

"This season I wanted to show people what I’m all about — that I’m not a runner who gets sick and drops out of races or passes out," she said. "I put all of that behind me and I looked forward. I was like, ‘OK, let’s have a better season this year.’ "

This year, she has joined seniors Kyli Astle and Lindsay Szybura in leading the Warriors to a third consecutive conference championship.

As the team’s top finisher in a meet Oct. 3 in Salem, Ore., Klettke was "way excited" about establishing a new 5k personal record of 18 minutes, 13.35 seconds — her fastest race in five years.

National goals

Klettke has been on the Fort Vancouver course before.

As a seventh grader, she competed in an open race held the day before the Reserve played host to the USATF Winter Cross Country Championships.

"I know the course," she said. "I’ve been out to Fort Vancouver, and I know the area. I looked at the map of the course, and I was like, ‘OK, I know exactly where it starts, and what hill that is.’ I know the course pretty well. I’m visualizing it, but I’m going to be comfortable with the area, for sure."

After last year’s tribulations, Klettke knew she would be back for her sophomore season.

She decided not to be just happy to be back.

She planned to be running at nationals this weekend, and has high hopes for herself and the Warriors.

"I have a goal set of Top 30 in the nation this year," she said. "That was my goal from last year after the whole sick thing. When you’re sick and you’re having a bad season, you question yourself, like, ‘Why am I doing this? I’m not having fun right now.’ You get back on the horse and keep going strong and realize why you’re doing the sport. When I got back into that and loving the sport, I was like, ‘OK, let’s set the goal high. Let’s get Top 30 in the nation and be an All-American.’ That’s my goal for this weekend. I’m going to just go out there and run hard and see what happens."

LCSC’s women slipped from No. 11 to No. 16 in the final NAIA poll of the season despite winning another Frontier Conference championship. The Warriors have been ranked as high as ninth during the season.

Klettke believes that LCSC can finish in the Top 10 of the 32-team field because of the team’s dedicated senior runners.

"I want to be up there pushing them to make sure that happens," she said.

Golden heart

Klettke said that Neil Young’s music is a favorite of her entire family, starting with her parents who "go to Idaho every other week" and have not missed any of her races.

Her dad is not the only one who thinks her race day last song is an appropriate choice.

"Of course I have a heart of gold," she said with a laugh. "I have a great heart. That’s what my mom tells me, anyway."

Glisson, who scored a game-high 25 points, came up with a steal with 14 seconds left and then was fouled while driving to the basket. He made both free throw attempts to put Warner Pacific, 4-1, ahead.

LCSC, which trailed by five at halftime and never led in the second half, had two chances at the end, but Markus Monroe missed a jumper with four seconds remaining. The Warriors managed to grab the rebound and call a timeout.

The Warriors` ensuing inbounds play didn`t go well, however, and 7-footer James Craft`s 3-point attempt at the buzzer missed.

The setback was LCSC`s first of the season. The Warriors, also 4-1 overall, defeated Warner Pacific 89-72 in Lewiston last Friday during the opening round of the LCSC Invitational.

The Warriors did lead by six, 23-17, in the first half, but was outscored 14-6 over a six-minute span, which helped the Knights take the lead.  LCSC managed only four points in the final 4:28 of the first half and all came from the free-throw line. That enabled Warner Pacific to take a 38-33 lead into intermission.

WPC led by 12, 51-39, early in the second half, but Monroe scored six points during an 8-0 run to get LCSC back into the game.  

Warner Pacific answered the call and stretched the lead back to nine, but the Warriors again fought back and a 3-pointer from Derek Gianukakis at the 4:59 mark cut the lead to one at 67-66.

Gianukakis`s steal at the 1:07 mark led to a pair of free throws by Jared Giammona with 1:03 left that tied the contest at 72.

WPC then missed a pair of shots, but Gianukakis missed the front end of a one-and-one free-throw attempt with 45 seconds left, but Gianukakis got the ball back for LCSC with a steal three seconds later. After working the clock down, the Warriors couldn`t convert and Glisson was able to steal the ball from LCSC`s Daniel Williams to set up the wild final seconds.

Monroe led the Warriors with 17 points, while Williams had 15 and Craft 11. Craft finished with a double-double as he also had 10 rebounds. Teammate Tanner McIntosh also grabbed 10 boards.

For the game, LCSC was only 26-of-68 from the field for 38.2 percent, while Warner Pacific was 27-of-65 for 41.5 percent. WPC also was 10-of-29 from the 3-point line, while LCSC was 4-of-14.

The Warriors did have a 45-43 rebounding advantage and forced 17 turnovers.

LCSC now heads to Caldwell, Idaho for the Golden Rule Shootout on Friday and Saturday. LCSC plays host College of Idaho on Friday at 7 p.m., and then takes on Northwest University on Saturday at 5 p.m.