Morgan Bertsch carving out big role for UC Davis basketball

Morgan Bertsch wasn’t sure if she wanted to go to college to compete in track or basketball. Or maybe both.

The former Santa Rosa High School two-sport standout seems to have made the right choice.

In her redshirt freshman year at UC Davis, she has worked herself into a pivotal starting role on the basketball team, becoming the Aggies’ leading scorer and putting herself on pace to break the school’s freshman scoring record.

“It’s going great so far,” Bertsch, a 6-4 post player, said last week between games at two Utah schools.

It’s been a roller coaster season for the Aggies, who are 7-6 in pre-Big West action. After two losses, the team went on a six-game winning streak, but then lost its next four.

On Thursday, they downed Utah Valley, 59-55, in the last nonconference game before traveling to Northridge for the Big West opener on Jan. 7. Bertsch iced the game with two free throws with less than a second left.

But as the team’s performance has been streaky, Bertsch’s impact has steadily increased.

By the Aggies’ third game, Bertsch had broken into the starting lineup, and she responded by scoring 14 points on 7-of-12 field-goal shooting in 24 minutes.

In UC Davis’ past six games, Bertsch has been the team’s high scorer five times, including games of 25, 21 and 20 points and her first double-double (with 11 rebounds) against Florida A&M on Dec. 20.

She has already broken the top 10 of UC Davis freshman scoring leaders at the Division I level with 174 points, fewer than 100 points behind the top spot with 17 regular-season games to go. Through the first 13 games, Bertsch leads the Aggies with 13.4 points per game, hitting a remarkable 58 percent of her field-goal attempts (72 of 124), also a team high.

If Bertsch continues at her current pace of more than 13 points per game, she would become the highest-scoring UC Davis freshman in Division I. (The all-time leader is Carol Rische, who finished with 459 points in 1979-1980, when Davis was a DII school.)

“After the first couple games, I got my confidence, and I realize I can come out here and make an impact on this team,” Bertsch said. “After redshirting, I wasn’t sure what my role would be on this team. … But I’ve made a place for myself.”

At Santa Rosa High, Bertsch etched her name into several scoring record books.

As co-MVP for the North Bay League in her senior year, she broke the single-season scoring record once held by her sister, McKennan. In track, she was consistently ranked among the top high jumpers in the state and owns the school record in that event as well.

As one of the tallest girls hoops players in the Redwood Empire, Bertsch evolved into a nearly unstoppable center, scoring on tip-ins and put-backs and owning the boards.

Bertsch averaged 17-plus points and 11 rebounds a game in her senior year. By the end of the campaign, she had established school single-season records for points (536), rebounds (336) and blocked shots (139).

Bertsch was The Press Democrat’s All-Empire Large School Female Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2014, the All-Empire Large School Girls Basketball Co-Player of the Year (along with Panthers teammate Katie Daly) and was All-Empire in track three times.

But in college, virtually every player was their school’s star. And 6-4 isn’t rare. Bertsch has had to broaden her game.

“In high school, I relied a lot on my height to get rebounds and score over people. Now, everyone is mainly the same height. … You have to get more creative and more crafty,” she said. “I rely now more on my speed and my nimbleness. I’m a lot speedier.

“I don’t have the muscle mass for the body-up style, so I have to go around.”

By her junior year in high school, no Division I colleges had approached Bertsch about basketball. Meanwhile, her numbers in high jump, long jump and triple jump were among the best in the region.

“I figured I’d go D1 for track and forget about basketball, or walk on if there was a school I liked and had a track program I liked,” she said.

But then Davis “astonished” her with a basketball scholarship - the first Panthers girls basketball player to ever receive such an offer.

It was a perfect fit, she said. Plus, her grandparents are able to drive over for every game, and often the rest of the family, too.

Bertsch said she’s still taking the track decision year by year, but she’s thrilled with her basketball career so far after redshirting her first year.

After a year of practicing with the first squad and being able to hone her skills at the college level - and try out some new moves in non-game situations - Bertsch has found her zone.

“I basically got a whole year to adjust to college life and figure out school along with playing basketball in college, and balancing all those things,” she said.

With a challenging major of biomedical engineering, Bertsch knows hard work remains for the next three years.

“Career-wise, I’m not really sure what I want to do,” she said, adding that playing pro basketball overseas may be an option. “But it’s been fun up to now.”

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.