It was only a year ago that Whitworth University basketball player Jake Holtz found himself beginning his college career playing in front of cardboard cutouts instead of actual people.
On Saturday, more than 1,100 fans packed Whitworth Fieldhouse in Spokane, Wash., to watch the Northwest Conference men’s basketball tournament championship.
Holtz could see players on the football team, many of whom are from Hawaii, taking up five full rows. He said the energy was different that night than it had felt all season.
“It’s starting to feel normal again,” the 2020 Damien graduate said to begin a phone interview on Tuesday. “It was definitely the most packed I’ve seen that gym.”
That normalcy includes the Whitworth men’s basketball team winning yet another conference championship, beating Whitman (Wash.) 85-59 to claim the school’s 14th tournament title.
It was a record 18th consecutive appearance in the tournament final for the Pirates, who will open the NCAA Division III tournament on Friday in Texas against Trinity College at 11 a.m.
Holtz and senior guard Liam Fitzgerald, a 2018 Leilehua alum, are two of the top six scorers on the team, each averaging 9.3 points per game.
Fitzgerald, who is listed at 6-foot-6, has started all 25 games he’s appeared in, while Holtz, who is 6-4, has come off the bench in every game for the Pirates, who are 22-4 and went 13-3 in the regular season to finish in a three-way tie for first.
In his past five games, Holtz has seen his playing time increase, and he’s made the most of it. He’s averaging 15.6 points in 19 minutes per game, including a 20-point effort in the NWC final on 8-for-12 shooting with six rebounds and two blocks.
“It’s been a roller-coaster season, really weird,” Holtz said. “The past three weeks, Coach (Damion Jablonski) has changed our offense to get the ball in the post more and that’s been really working, allowing us bigs space to work.”
Holtz was getting at least 10 minutes off the bench in most games, but then came a road trip to Linfield and Pacific University in Oregon in early February, where he saw six total minutes in both games and scored just one point.
The Pirates lost to Linfield and then by 16 points to Pacific Lutheran the next game, in which Holtz played 10 minutes and scored just four points.
Admittedly frustrated, he decided he needed to be honest with his coach.
“I had a meeting with (Coach Jablonski) and told him about how I felt and how I could play better and he kind of changed the offense for me,” Holtz said. “He has really been listening to us players, which is great and always a good feeling for a player to have a coach that will actually listen to you.”
Whitworth hasn’t lost since and Holtz has attempted at least 10 shots in all but one of those games.
Fitzgerald leads the team in both steals and blocks and is second in 3-pointers made, shooting 39 percent (39-for-100) from behind the arc.
After losing in the NWC tournament final as a freshman, Fitzgerald averaged 16.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.0 assists in two NCAA tournament wins as a sophomore to advance to the Sweet 16.
That next game never took place, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit a couple of days before it was scheduled, wiping out the tournament before a champion was crowned.
“It was actually really crazy. We had gotten to Texas and played our first two games and won both and we kind of got word that COVID was going around while we were in Dallas,” Fitzgerald said. “We went back to Spokane as we were about to get on the bus to go to the airport (for the Sweet 16 game) and the news started coming out that the season was canceled and the NCAA called and everything was shut down.”
Just days after he was supposed to play in the Sweet 16, Fitzgerald was home in Hawaii to finish out the semester taking online courses.
“Everything just happened so quick,” Fitzgerald said. “(Basketball) got canceled, then school got canceled, then we packed up our stuff and went home just like that.”
Fitzgerald and Holtz had crossed paths once or twice while in high school, but didn’t know each other well.
Now they are roommates.
Holtz, a two-sport standout at Damien who also quarterbacked the football team, had an opportunity to continue his football career at Central Michigan, but said he didn’t want to travel that far for school.
His original choice for basketball was Sonoma State, but the coach who recruited him was fired his senior year, so he settled on Whitworth.
“I love it. I mean, I was kind of hesitant at first … but it ended up working out for me,” Holtz said. “It’s not too small of a school, but not too big of a school. The classroom size is perfect, easy for me to learn, and I’ve made a lot of good friends. It’s all worked out.”
Jake Holtz
>> School: Whitworth (Wash.)
>> Class: Sophomore
>> Height: 6 feet 4
>> Position: Guard/forward
>> High school: Damien (2020)
Liam Fitzgerald
>> School: Whitworth (Wash.)
>> Class: Senior
>> Height: 6 feet 6
>> Position: Guard
>> High school: Leilehua (2018)
