Gonzaga crew gets invitation

Gonzaga University freshmen Lizzie Braicks, Teddi McGuire, Elise Perkins and Chelsea Quilling have been invited to the 2009 Women’s National Team Freshman Camp.

The camp is being held at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

Braicks, McGuire, Perkins and Quilling were all members of the Novice 8+ crew that placed eighth at the Pacific-10 Championships and claimed gold at the WIRA Championships.

Academics

Football player Marcus Walker and track and field standout Bonnie Berscheid represented Eastern Washington University as Big Sky Conference Scholar-Athletes for the 2008-09 school year.

Walker and Berscheid join 16 others, two from each league school.

Berscheid twice won the Big Sky discus title but did not compete in the 2009 championships because of a shoulder injury.

She has been named Big Sky All-Academic seven times. She is majoring in business management, human resources and management information systems and has attained a 3.89 grade-point average.

Despite battling a shoulder injury in 2008, Walker played in nine contests and started three, including two of the final three games of the campaign.

The linebacker finished the season with 34 tackles. The interdisciplinary studies major earned the team’s Iron Eagle Award for academic and athletic performance in 2008. He also was named to the Big Sky’s All-Academic team each of his four years at Eastern and has earned a cumulative 3.58 GPA.

•University of Idaho distance runner Allix Lee-Painter was selected as a second-team Academic All-American by ESPN The Magazine as voted on by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

Lee-Painter, a senior distance runner from Moscow, Idaho, was the 2008 Western Athletic Conference Cross Country women’s athlete of the year, WAC cross country champion, 2009 WAC Indoor Track performer of the year and WAC indoor 5,000-meter champion, 3,000 runner-up and 1-mile runner-up. She maintained a 3.83 GPA with a double-major in secondary education and English.

Jonathan Marler, a junior high jumper from Kennewick, was named to the third team. He has maintained a 4.0 GPA through his Vandals career.

Administration

Gonzaga University athletics director Mike Roth is one of 29 regional recipients of the Under Armour A.D. of the Year Award announced by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.

The winners were recognized during the 44th Annual NACDA Convention at the James J. Corbett Luncheon on Saturday in Orlando, Fla.

Roth was named the West Region winner in Division I.

Basketball

North Idaho College men’s basketball team signed two NCAA Division I transfers for the 2009-2010 season.

Logan Jones, a 6-foot-2-inch combo guard from Valparaiso University in Indiana, averaged 2.6 points per game and played in 29 games.

Ameer Shamsud-din, a 6-foot-2-inch combo guard, played in 24 games for California State-Fullerton.

•Gonzaga University-bound Kelly Olynyk was named the MVP at the Douai World Junior Basketball Tournament south of Lille, France.

A native of Kamloops, B.C., and graduate of South Kamloops High, Olynyk helped Canada to the title as teams prepare for the U19 FIBA World Championships July 2-12 in Auckland, New Zealand.

Olynyk, a 6-10, 215-pound forward, scored 17 points in Canada’s 86-78 win over Lithuania in the title game.

Football

The Spokane Wolfpack semi-pro football team landed 15 players on the Washington Football League roster for the Greater Northwest Football League (GNFL) all-star game in Wenatchee last Saturday.

The Wolfpack players are Tim Mitrovich, Eddie Stone, Daniel Mallory, DeAngelo Pruitt, Dustin Clark, Andre Cummings, Casey Lawrence, Jake Pinkerton, Josh Queen, Clark Pauls, Jeff Prendergast, Travis Holbrook, Dane Weed, Matt Christianson and Rob Stone.

Track and field

Washington State University added two women and two men to the track and field team for next season, head coach Rick Sloan announced.

The two women are Shawna Fermin, a quarter-miler and long jumper from Silverado High in Victorville, Calif., and Shaquana Logan, a hurdler from Bellarmine Prep in Tacoma.

The two men joining the Cougars are Stephan Scott-Ellis, a triple jumper and long jumper from Curtis High in Tacoma, and Dana Wells, an intermediate hurdler from Riverside Christian High in Yakima.

Wells ran both cross country and track at Riverside Christian and won Washington State 2B championships in the 110-meter hurdles, 300 hurdles 4x100 relay, finished second in the 100 dash and led the Crusaders boys to their third consecutive team track and field title.