Area Tennis Players Have Strong Showing

Five players or doubles teams from the Spokane area and North Idaho claimed titles in the Inland Empire Junior Tennis Championships last weekend at Spokane Racquet Club.

Another seven won consolation bracket finals, and 10 others were beaten in finals matches.

The event attracted 186 players from throughout the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. Nick Tostenrude of Vancouver, Wash., who came in seeded No. 4, won the featured champ boys 18 singles title and Erica Edgecombe of Eugene, Ore., backed up her No. 1 seeding by winning the champ girls 18 singles.

Area division champions: Carla Jones, Spokane, champ girls 12 singles; Karl Johnson-Phillip Laubscher, Spokane, boys 16 doubles; Amador Zuazua, Hayden Lake, boys 16 singles; Ryan Moran Spokane and Tostenrude, boys 18 doubles; Ellen Adams, Spokane, girls 10 singles.

Consolation finals winners: Chase Huebner, Spokane, boys 10 singles; Keli Heidenson, Spokane, boys 18 singles; Charles Adams, Spokane, champ boys 12 singles; Karl Johnson, Spokane, champ boys 16 singles; Jessica Carlson, Spokane, girls 12 singles; Staci Heidenson, Spokane, girls 14 singles; Erin Stransky, Coeur d’Alene, girls 16 singles.

Losing finalists: Peter Johnson, Spokane and Brice Cooper, British Columbia, boys 14 doubles; Nick Mays, Spokane, boys 18 singles; Ben Hough, Spokane, champ boys 12 singles consolation; Jacob Stocking, Connell, champ boys 14 singles; Brian Tuchscherer, Moscow, Idaho, champ boys 18 singles consolation; Aaryn Volkman, Spokane, champ girls 18 singles consolation; Kayla Clarke, Spokane, girls 10 singles; Shelby Raabe, Spokane, girls 12 singles consolation; Jessica Carlson and Shelby Raabe, Spokane, second in round-robin girls 12 doubles; Kali Richards, Spokane, girls 14 singles consolation.

Basketball

Karie Pruett, a second-team All-Greater Spokane League player from Ferris, attended the Reebok/Women’s Basketball Coaches Association senior camp last week at Washington University in St. Louis.

Pruett, a 5-foot-9 senior-to-be, was one of more than 450 players nationwide attending one of the three-day camps last month.

Equestrian

Spokane’s Jessica Oxendine, 15, and Maggi Holbert, 17, have been selected to represent the Northwest’s four-state region in the Preliminary North American Young Riders’ Three Day Event Championships Aug. 5-10 in Wadsworth, Ill. They will compete against top level riders from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Oxendine, a student at University High School, has been riding her 14-year-old Appendix Quarter Horse, Rusky Halo, for four years. To qualify for the competition, Oxendine competed at the preliminary level in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Seattle and Denver. She won the Deep Creek Horse Trials at Medical Lake last month.

Holbert, a senior at Lewis and Clark High School, competes at the intermediate level on her New Zealand thoroughbred, Goodinuff.

Softball

The 14-and-under Nitro girls fastpitch softball team from Spokane beat the Diamondbacks from Hillsboro, Ore., 5-2 last Sunday to win the Amateur Softball Association Northwest Regional B Championship at Franklin Park.

With the win, Nitro secured a berth to the ASA Western Area Championships Aug. 7-10 in Evanston, Wyo.

Nitro is the first Spokane team to win an ASA Regional Championship. They finished with a 6-0 record in the regional tournament and outscored their opponents 71-10 and batted .414 as a team.

The Spokane Amateur Softball Association, which will stage a Men’s 40-and-Over Modified National Invitational Tournament Aug. 15-17 at Franklin Park, has put out the call for area men’s slowpitch teams to consider joining the field.

“Most of them hit the ball pretty good,” said Chuck Gaylord, who will have a team in the tournament. “All they have to do is pick up a modified pitcher and they’d fit in.”

Interested teams should contact Clarence Buckenberger at (509) 924-6610. Deadline is Monday.

, DataTimes