SLIPPERY ROCK — It’s a snowy Wednesday night and the 2004-05 Slippery Rock High School girls basketball season is a fading memory.

But Jence Rhoads chooses on this frigid early March evening to traipse off to a neighborhood gym and to take 200 jump shots, some from short and mid-range, but a larger percentage from behind the 3-point arc.

“I’m trying to work on my 3s,” Rhoads says. “That’s probably where I am weakest.”

She shoots free throws, too.

“You can never shoot enough foul shots,” Rhoads says.

It’s that work ethic that has aged the basketball Rhoads beyond the everyday one who is 16 and still just a sophomore.

On the court, she is anything but an underclassman.

That’s why Rhoads has been named the Butler County Girls Basketball Player of the Year.

The 5-foot-11 point guard averaged 19.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 6.1 assists this season for the Rockets.

In her first 49 varsity games, she’s been held to fewer than 10 points just once and has scored 871 points — she’ll easily surpass 1,000 career points next season as a junior.

Yet in practice, she carries herself as just another player. She doesn’t consider herself a star. Sometimes, she passes up open shots to get her teammates involved.

“I think the big thing with Jence is if you walked into practice, you wouldn’t know she was the best player on the team,” said Slippery Rock coach Gene Rodgers. “As a person, she’s very polite and her work ethic is almost unmatched.

“She’s a phenomenal player, but the type of person she is is just as phenomenal.”

Rhoads has a pretty good gene pool to draw from. Her father Robert “Posey” Rhoads enjoyed a solid basketball career at Wake Forest University before playing professionally in Australia and New Zealand. Her mother Melinda was a standout on the Slippery Rock University women’s basketball team and was a member of the 1984 United States Olympic handball team.

But Jence Rhoads is carving out her own niche and making her own name on the basketball courts around Butler and Mercer counties.

“She’s seen a lot of gimmick defenses designed to stop her,” Rodgers said. “I think the big thing this year is she’s become physically stronger and she’s tried to take games over when she is facing those gimmick defenses.”

The scary part for opponents is Rhoads will only get taller and stronger.

She already has gotten a fill of what defense is like in the post. Because of her height and strength, she often guarded the opposition’s center and forwards.“It’s funny because you don’t usually see a point guard guarding other team’s centers and power forwards,” Rodgers said. “She accepts that challenge.”Rhoads is quick to hand out praise to her teammates, much like she hands out assists to them.“It’s easier to play defense in the post because of Abby (Basta) and Casey (McCaffrey),” Rhoads said. “They are so good on defense and they help out with rebounding.”Rhoads is also developing as a leader.When she came to the team and became an instant starter as a freshman, she took on a low profile off the court. Next year, she will be a junior and will be more of a leader, she said.“I’ll finally be an upperclassmen. Now I can boss people around,” Rhoads said, chuckling.One thing Rhoads wants to do is see the team progress.Slippery Rock was knocked out of the playoffs in the first round for the second consecutive season.That doesn’t sit well with Rhoads.“Well, as a team I hope we can make it past the first round of the playoffs,” she said. “Individually, well, I don’t know. I want to work on shooting more because I want to play in college.”Rodgers sees no reason why Rhoads won’t be playing at some big-time college somewhere in three years.He’s just glad he has her here now.“You have to believe the sky is the limit with her,” Rodgers said.