UW women meet SPU in exhibition basketball game

Washington opens its exhibition season tonight at Edmundson Pavilion against Seattle Pacific, which is ranked No. 16 in the USA Today/ESPN Division II coaches' poll.

The Huskies begin their third campaign under coach Tia Jackson, trying to overcome a disappointing 8-22 finish last season. UW won just three Pac-10 games and was selected to finish last in the conference again this season.

Jackson has new players and an altered starting lineup in hopes of countering predictions. Former Chief Sealth star Regina Rogers, who transferred from UCLA, is eligible to play and will start at center. She replaces senior Laura McLelland in the lineup.

"This is a great place to start to see where we are," said Jackson, who has 12 returning players. "We look really good in practice. We've got a couple of things we need to clean up, but we look fairly decent. We're healthy, so you can see a lot on the growth of our players every single day, so I just think it'll be a good sign to see where we are."

Alongside Rogers are senior guard Sara Mosiman, and Sami Whitcomb, a senior forward who led the Huskies in scoring last year (12.8). Sophomore guard Kristi Kingma also will start along with junior point guard Sarah Morton.

Forwards Liz Lay and Lydia Young will not play because of knee injuries.

SPU returns nine players that were part of last season's 23-5 finish. They are 3-8 all-time against Washington, last playing the Huskies in February 1979.

Notes

• The UW women's golf team wrapped up its fall season with a 10th-place finish at the Turtle Bay Resort College Invitational in Kuhuku, Hawaii. Junior Anya Alvarez shot an even-par 72 and ended up tied for 14th at 5-over 221.

• Seattle Pacific placed nine players on the GNAC academic women's soccer team.

Sports-information departments and other sources contributed to this report.