Pomona’s Standout Point Guard Wagner Takes the Long Way Home : Basketball: After playing at Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, she competed at Fullerton College and Northern Arizona before transferring to Pomona.

Point guard Debbie Wagner was the basketball prospect who slipped away from Cal Poly Pomona Coach Darlene May.

After a successful career at Fullerton College that ended two seasons ago, May recruited Wagner.

But Wagner wanted to play farther from her Buena Park home, so she settled on Northern Arizona, an NCAA Division I school.

“I wanted to play Division I ball but I really wanted to get out on my own and experience new things,” Wagner said. “I really didn’t think of it in terms of basketball.”

But after one season, Wagner grew unhappy with the program at Northern Arizona and decided she wanted to return to Southern California to finish her college career.

“Word spread about her being unhappy and she had talked to her (community college) coach from Fullerton about it,” May said. “Then (the coach, Colleen Riley) called me and asked me if we were still interested in (Wagner) and I think it took me about 30 seconds to say yes.”

Wagner said she hasn’t regretted the decision for one moment and neither has May.

Wagner, 21, has been a lifesaver in Pomona’s NCAA Division II playoff drive. In the Division II West Regional at Cal State Stanislaus in Turlock last week, Wagner made the game-winning basket two nights in a row as the Broncos defeated Barry of Florida, 67-64, and UC Davis, 58-56, to advance to the division quarterfinals for the seventh season in a row.

The Broncos (22-8) will visit Southeast Missouri State (29-3) in the Division II quarterfinals Saturday night in Cape Girardeau, Mo., and May credits the 5-foot-6 Wagner for much of the team’s success this season.

“Without her I could tell you we might be at .500 right now,” May said. “In the two games over the weekend, her baskets won the game for us. She doesn’t always have to score for us but she does sometimes. She just does so many intangibles as a player.”

For the season, Wagner is only third on the team in scoring at 9.2, but averages a team-leading 5.8 assists and 3.6 steals and is fifth in rebounding at 3.1.

But it isn’t necessarily Wagner’s statistics that have impressed May the most.

“She has the ability to handle the ball, run the offense and show great leadership,” May said. “It’s the whole package. I can’t think of one thing she doesn’t do well. You name it, she does it.

“I think she pretty much epitomizes the kind of player we like on our team. She probably practices even harder than she plays in the games and she plays pretty hard.”

Wagner says she wasn’t always as enthusiastic about basketball as she is now. When she first started playing at Mater Dei High, Wagner said she wasn’t thinking about her future in the sport.

“I didn’t really take it seriously until my junior year,” she said. “Until then it was basically something I did for fun. In my senior year I made all-league but it wasn’t like I was a standout. I just played and didn’t go all out for awards.”

Although she was voted her team’s most valuable player as a senior at Mater Dei, Wagner said it wasn’t until she started playing for Fullerton that her attitude about the sport changed.

“That’s where I really learned to play point guard,” she said. “I really matured at that position and as a player. Probably the best thing that could’ve happened to me was to go to a JC because it gave me a chance to learn the game and develop.”

Wagner had a good junior season at Northern Arizona, starting 21 of the 24 games she played. She averaged 9.3 points, 4.2 assists and 4.1 rebounds.

But Wagner was more concerned with the success of the team, which finished 12-14.

“I went there and started right away and I probably played about 25 to 30 minutes a game,” she said. “I got to play a lot but it wasn’t a winning program.”

A winning program was something that she had grown accustomed to in high school and community college.

“At Mater Dei we always had winning records and at Fullerton we only lost two games my sophomore year,” Wagner said. “When you’re used to winning it’s hard to go to a program that’s trying to build like that.”

Wagner said she might have stayed at Northern Arizona except for the fact that the coach there resigned.

“At the beginning of the year the coach said he wasn’t returning at the end of the season and that’s what got me there in the first place,” she said. “We were also losing a lot of players and I didn’t want to be in transition like that in my senior year. I didn’t want my career to end that way.”

After speaking with her former coach at Fullerton, Wagner was able to receive a release from her scholarship at Northern Arizona and transfer to Pomona.

“I couldn’t ask for it to go any better,” she said. “I can’t say I would’ve changed my decision to go to Northern Arizona. I learned a lot of things about myself just being on my own there. It would’ve been nice to have two years to play here but I just feel lucky to have gotten one.”

While it could have been a difficult adjustment with the Broncos, Wagner said the transition was pretty simple.

“Being from where I came from it really wasn’t that hard to adjust to,” she said. “It was just being at a place that had a winning attitude and that’s what I wanted. I had to get to know everyone here but it wasn’t too hard of an adjustment.”

There is no doubt about her growth as a player with the Broncos. Wager was selected to the All-California Collegiate Athletic Assn. first team.

Wagner is simply hoping for the season to last a few more games and for the Broncos to reach the final four for the third consecutive season.

“When you reach this point you don’t want it to end,” she said. “At this point of my career I just want to go to the final four. If we don’t make it then I will have to deal with that later but if we do make it, it will be like a dream come true.”