During her practices, Jersey Wolfenbarger treats every shot like its a last-second shot. Her repetition at shooting game-winners has paid off.
"Every day that I workout, whether it's with my trainer or my mom, we treat the next shot as if it's the final shot," Wolfenbarger said. "That's the approach I always take."
JERSEY WOLFENBARGER
SCHOOL Fort Smith Northside
POSITION Guard
CLASS Sophomore
HEIGHT 6-2
NOTEWORTHY Born on Jan. 9, 2003 and the daughter of Megan Wolfenbarger and Tashina Miles. … Led Northside in scoring (456), three-pointers (62) and free throws made (107), attempted (136) and percentage (77). … As a freshman, Wolfenbarger scored 10.3 points a game and 2.6 assists a game. … MVP of the Class 6A state tournament. … Team finished 28-1.
Wolfenbarger is the girls Arkansas Democrat-Gazette All-Arkansas Preps Underclassman of the Year for 2019.
"Jersey's different," Fort Smith Northside Coach Rickey Smith said. "She's a student of the game and so dedicated on her own. As soon as our practices were over, she'd grab a snack, drink her juice and go for two hours more."
It's hard to argue with Wolfenbarger's viewpoint of shot-selection. The 6-2 sophomore guard for the Lady Bears drove the length of the court in the final seconds of the Class 6A state championship game to knock down a 12-footer for a 36-34 victory over Bentonville.
Northside trailed 28-21 five seconds into the final quarter, but Wolfenbarger scored nine points in the game's final 5:40 to help spur the Lady Bears' comeback and help the program earn its seventh state title.
"That was an unbelievable experience," Wolfenbarger said. "That's something my teammates really wanted. We wanted it so bad and we just didn't give up.
"There were a lot of intangibles that we took advantage of. We made some stops, we pressed, we rebounded. We made the most of our opportunities."
The morning after Northside won the state title, Coach Smith received a text from Wolfenbarger.
"She sent me a picture of her working with the shooting machine," Smith said. "That's Jersey for you. She's wired a little differently ... For someone else to outwork her, there will have to be 27 or 28 hours in a day."
Wolfenbarger played in all 29 of the Lady Bears' games, averaging 15.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.3 steals a game. She hit 62 of 147 three-pointers (42.1 percent) and 106 of 137 free-throw attempts (77.4 percent).
Even before the championship game, Wolfenbarger had already turned in her share of last-second heroics. In a five overtime loss at North Little Rock her freshman season, Wolfenbarger hit game-tying shots to push the game into the first and second overtimes. Again at North Little Rock this season, Wolfenbarger came up with a loose ball and hit an off-balanced shot to again send a game into an extra period.
But no last-second shot will be remembered as much as the game-winner against Bentonville.
"I felt I had to create something," Wolfenbarger said. "It was all or nothing. I told my teammates, 'Trust me. We'll get this done.' "
Sports on 03/24/2019