RICHMOND, Ky. - Eastern Kentucky University women's basketball coach Larry Joe Inman has announced the signing of Katie Stearns, 6-2 post player from DeQueen, AR, to a national letter-of-intent.

Stearns, who played her high school basketball at DeQueen Senior High School, played last season for Carl Albert State College, a junior college in Poteau, OK, where she averaged 22.1 points and 12.3 rebounds per game as a freshman.

She was recently listed as one of the top 20 junior college post players in the nation by the All-Star Girls' Report of the Grass Roots Recruiting Guide, one of the nation's top recruiting publications.

"Katie gives us a versatile post player who has that one extra year of experience having played last year at Carl Albert JC," said Inman. "She has very good ability to play in the paint and good quickness.

"We lost three post players through graduation, so this was a key find for us and closes our recruiting for the year. Katie is a good, all-around post player that should be able to help us next year."

While at DeQueen, Stearns led the state in blocked shots with her 8.2 per game average. She was All-Conference, All-District, All-Region Most Valuable Player and All-State her senior year, while also being accorded the prestigious honor of being named Miss Southwest Arkansas Player of the Year for 1997-98.

Inman said that Stearns chose Eastern over Arkansas, Nebraska and Kent State. She has three years of eligibility remaining at Eastern and will be eligible for the 1999-2000 year.