After spending time at point guard for Willamette University last season, Kaitlin Imai is primarily back to doing what she does best on the basketball court: scoring a lot of points.

Just because she’s not quarterbacking the Bearcats on the court, however, doesn’t mean the Scotts Valley High graduate’s leadership role has been diminished. In fact, as Willamette’s top scorer and one of its team captains, she’s a huge reason why the Bearcats remain in contention for a conference tournament bid despite some early-season struggles.

Entering this Friday’s home game against Whitman — the country’s fifth-ranked NCAA Division III team — Imai leads Willamette with 14.3 points per game. That number is good enough to place her fifth among the Northwest Conference’s scoring leaders.

“I’m lucky enough to be at a school where my coach and teammates trust me,” Imai said. “They know I’m going to take the best shots for my team and not take the ones that aren’t right.”

In perhaps none of Willamette’s games was that more apparent than in the Bearcats’ Jan. 3 road victory over George Fox University. In that contest, Imai lit up a Bruins squad that had won eight of its first nine games, scoring a career-high 27 points on 8-of-11 shooting to spark Willamette to a 66-56 triumph.

Especially impressive was Imai’s shooting from 3-point range: The junior shooting guard hit 7-of-9 — the most she’d ever hit in a college game — en route to earning the Northwest Conference’s Player of the Week award.

“Once I hit those first few shots, the rim seemed a little bigger,” Imai said. “That always helps.

“Urgency and the need to win and succeed for my team is what drives me.”

Imai has posted five 20-point games this season and been held to fewer than 10 points just four times. She also scored 15 points — all on 3-pointers — on Dec. 15 when UC Santa Cruz visited Willamette’s campus in Salem, Ore., lifting the Bearcats to an 87-53 victory.

Most recently, Imai posted her first double-double of the season, netting 14 points and grabbing 13 rebounds on Jan. 28 in Willamette’s 61-58 win over Lewis & Clark University of Portland.

Imai distributes the ball almost as well as she shoots it: She ranks second on the Bearcats and seventh in the Northwest Conference in assists with 2.9 per contest. She dished out five assists, two shy of her season high, last Saturday in Willamette’s narrow home loss to George Fox.

Imai’s efforts have kept a young Willamette squad that boasts five freshmen and three sophomores in the thick of the Northwest Conference tournament chase. While Whitman (17-1, 9-0), the Bearcats’ opponent this Friday, appears to be running away with the conference’s regular-season title, Willamette (7-12, 4-6) is tied for fifth place with four other teams, just one game out of fourth, and two behind George Fox for third.

Given that Willamette lost five straight games after beating George Fox on Jan. 3, that’s not a terrible place to be.

“We have two freshmen starting,” Imai said. “We lost a lot of players (from last year).

“We were new, figuring out each other’s styles of play, developing team chemistry and learning to trust each other. But we’ve gotten into the flow of things later in the season.”

As a team captain, Imai has played a big part in that. She credits her time as a point guard last season with helping her to grow as a leader.

“I have a stronger voice,” Imai said. “I’m focused on building a family atmosphere where we’re all excited to show up for each other and play hard for each other.”

A civic communications and media major, Imai is still figuring out her post-college career path. She knows this much: She aspires to be a connector of people.

Toward that end, she plans to spend her summer interning with the Piece of My Mind Foundation, a Minnesota-based, non-profit organization aimed at “facilitating difficult conversations across bridges of difference,” Imai said. She’ll be accompanying a photographer as he enters communities to engage people in conversations.

For now, though, Imai’s focus is on fostering togetherness on the court at Willamette.

“Where we’re going, we want to go together,” she said. “The biggest thing besides winning is creating a positive environment where everyone works hard. We have the most success when we care for each other.”