Edmiston sheds distractions

Jansen Edmiston didn’t know how to pivot.

She was in 3rd grade and on the schoolyard with a friend, Martee Kelly. Kelly was demonstrating a pivot, the act of keeping one foot on the ground and turning on it, as Edmiston was going to start playing basketball soon and wanted to learn. Years later, the 2015-16 All-EO Girls Basketball Player of the Year is one of the best girls basketball players to come through Hermiston.

But the beginning was humble.

“I was like, ‘You can’t switch feet?’ And she was teaching me all this stuff,” Edmiston said. “Everything else basically came naturally — dribbling, passing.”

Edmiston rarely had issues with the former or the latter in her four seasons of varsity basketball at Hermiston.

This past season, she tied for the team with 14.2 points per game and added team-highs of 7.3 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 3.4 steals per game. Her totals of 341 points, 174 rebounds, 118 assists, 82 steals and 28 blocked shots were all teams highs, and she also led the Bulldogs with 52 made three-pointers.

But though basketball became Edmiston’s one and only sport by her senior season, she excelled at other sports along the way. Her mother, Catreece, was an assistant swim coach at Hermiston, and naturally got her long-armed daughter involved in the sport.

Initially, Edmiston wasn’t too excited about swimming. Like basketball, her parents made the decision for Edmiston to participate in these sports, and she heavily resisted at first. The 8-year-old swam at Pendleton Swim Club, as is slightly embarrassed to share that detail.

“I was crying. I didn’t want to do it,” she recalled. “But once they got me in the water, they couldn’t really get me back out.”

Her best event was the freestyle, but her favorite stroke was the breaststroke, the difficult technique that require a swimmer to perform complex motions with arms and feet simultaneously. She went to state her first two years, but had a decision looming.

Because swimming is a winter sport in Oregon, she would have to decide between that and basketball, her love. In sixth grade, she began to consider this, and understood then she would have to stop doing something she enjoys. Part of her pulled her toward basketball, the sport she most enjoyed and the one she was best at. In the other direction was swimming, with the family connection of her coach mother.

“I loved basketball,” Edmiston said. “Even with track, I was good at track, but I loved basketball. That’s what I wanted to do when I was older, and that’s the only thing that I feel like would keep me going into college. I kinda got nervous or scared when I did other sports, but I knew in basketball I’d be fine.”

Edmiston set the goal early to be on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. To accomplish that feat, a relative rarity, she knew she would have to concentrate on one thing. Unfortunately for swimming, it meant that had to cease.

This time it was Edmiston’s mother’s turn to cry, and although tears were shed, Edmiston made sure they weren’t in vain.

Not only would Edmiston make the varsity her freshman season, the day before the season opener she found out she was in the starting five.

“I didn’t really believe (the coaches),” Edmiston said. “I was super nervous. I remember I didn’t go shake the other coach’s hand (during introductions) because I was so nervous.”

The first two years of her high school career, Edmiston was still a two-sport standout at Hermiston and competed in track during the spring. She qualified for the OSAA State Championships as a sprinter her sophomore year and finished second in the 100-meters and third in the 400. But she declined to try to improve on those medals.

“With track, I was contemplating or months if I needed to do it,” she said. “Back then, I can’t really remember, but (I just decided to) focus on basketball.”

Her focus was rewarded when prior to her senior season she signed a letter of intent to attend Lewis-Clark State University in Lewiston, Idaho on a basketball scholarship.

“I think it all turned out in the end,” she said.

———

All EO Girls Basketball

First Team

POY — Jansen Edmiston, senior, Hermiston

Sara Ramirez, senior, Hermiston

Mary Stewart, sophomore, Nixyaawii

Emma Logan, senior, Condon/Wheeler

Maddy Juul, sophomore, Hermiston

Sidney Webb, senior, Umatilla

Second Team

Chelsea Quaempts, sophomore, Weston-McEwen

Jada Burns, sophomore, Irrigon

Jessie Flynn, senior, Ione

Kalan McGlothan, sophomore, Pendleton

Sydney Richwine, junior, Mac-Hi

Madison Dave, senior, Pilot Rock

Third Team

Haley Greb, junior, Pendleton

Aleesha Watson, junior, Umatilla

Kynzee Padilla, junior, Hermiston

Bekah Roe, junior, Pilot Rock

Yazzmin Chavez, senior, Stanfield

Sunshine Fuentes, junior, Nixyaawii