Sunday Locals: Volleyball hall honors Ward

Stacey Ward, former longtime Spokane high school coach, was inducted into the Washington State Volleyball Coaches Hall of Fame on Nov. 12 at the State 4A championships.

Ward was an assistant at North Central for six years before going to Ferris, where she was head coach for 18 years before retiring in 2007.  She won five Greater Spokane League championships, five district titles and one state championship.  She took six teams to state, with half of them reaching the championship match. She had two runners-up, and third-, sixth- and seventh-place finishes. Her career record was 412-102.

Ward, who teaches at Ferris, continues to stay active in the local volleyball scene by coaching a club team and running the annual high school Crossover Classic.

Also inducted in the Class of 2010 were Janice Kirk, who has been at Fife for 24 years, and Joanne Uhl, who was at Bishop Blanchet for 12 years and is presently at Kennedy in Burien.

College scene

Lewis-Clark State College reaped multiple honors following a volleyball season in which it compiled a school-record 31-3 mark, won Frontier Conference regular-season and tournament titles for a fourth straight year and advanced to the quarterfinals of the NAIA National Championships.

Nicole Graybeal, a junior middle blocker from North Central High School and Spokane Falls Community College, was selected to the 2010 Tachikara-NAIA Volleyball All-America first team.

The American Volleyball Coaches’ Association named coach Jennifer Greeny, a Davenport High School and Washington State University product, its Northwest Region coach of the year for the fourth straight season, while Graybeal was named both the player of the year and the newcomer of the year for the Northwest Region.

“Nicole was a force in the middle,” said associate head coach Burdette Greeny.

Graybeal played in all but one match this season and had top-five finishes in all the major statistical categories, leading the team in solo blocks and block assists.

 Additionally, Graybeal was selected to the Tachikara NAIA All-Tournament team for her performance at nationals, and was named to the AVCA All-Northwest Region team, while junior outside hitter Kelli Tikker from Lakeside of Nine Mile Falls received all-region honorable mention.

 Greeny is a finalist for AVCA national coach of the year for the fourth straight season. Graybeal was one of only two athletes who won both player of the year and newcomer of the year for a region.

 Tikker and senior Kim Fong of Lewiston received Daktronics-NAIA Volleyball Scholar-Athlete awards for carrying grade-point averages of 3.5 or better.

• Kristin Telin , Carroll College’s senior outside hitter from Central Valley, was named a 2010 Daktronics-NAIA Volleyball Scholar-Athlete with a GPA of 3.5 or higher.

• Kate Loper, a freshman guard on the Hofstra University women’s basketball team from Post Falls, was named the Colonial Athletic Association rookie of the week last week for the second time this season. She also received the honor Nov. 15.

In an 89-73 win over Fairfield a week ago, Loper was one of three Pride players to score 13 points, hitting 5 of 8 shots from the field, including two 3-pointers. She added four rebounds, two assists and two steals in 22 minutes. 

Through five games, Loper is averaging 11.4 points and 2.6 rebounds per game.  She leads the Pride in 3-pointers with 11.

• Justin Meyer leads a group of three Whitworth juniors named to the 2010 National Soccer Coaches Association of America Division III All-West Region men’s team.

Meyer, a midfielder honored for the second straight year, was joined on the team by defender Nate Spangler and midfielder Cameron Bushey (Mead). Meyer and Spangler were named to the second team, while Bushey was a third-team selection.

Pirates junior forward Sarah Berentson made the NSCAA Division III All-West Region women’s third team. Berentson led the Pirates in scoring with seven goals and five assists.

• Sheridan Jones, a senior midfielder on the Gonzaga women’s team, was named to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America and Performance Subaru All-West Region third team.

It is the second postseason accolade for Jones, who earlier earned her second consecutive second-team All-West Coast Conference honor after being a first-team selection in 2008.

She had 14 career assists, one shy of the program’s career record.

• Brandon Kaufman, a sophomore All-Big Sky Conference receiver on the football team with a 3.57 cumulative grade-point average, and Alysha Cook, a senior who was an All-BSC honorable mention volleyball player with a 3.73 GPA, are the Eastern Washington athletic department scholar-athletes for November.