Wood Bat tournament draws near
Annual event begins Friday at 15 sites
The annual Spokane/Coeur d’Alene 4th of July Legion Wood Bat Classic tournaments begin Friday at 15 venues in the region.
Seventy-eight teams will be divided into three divisions. Teams are coming from Alberta, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Saskatchewan, Utah and Washington.
The Senior tournament has 28 teams, the Junior tournament has 40 teams and the 16-and-under tournament has 10 teams.
Senior teams that figure to challenge for the championship are defending champ Prospect Academy from Alberta, Billings (Mont.) Scarlets, Twin City Titans from Richland, Chino Red from California, the Spokane Bandits, Great Falls (Mont.) Chargers and the Coeur d’Alene Lumbermen.
The Senior title game will be held July 4 at Gonzaga University’s Patterson Baseball Complex, beginning at 1:30. The Junior title game will be at McEuen Field in Coeur d’Alene at 2 and the U-16 final will be at 2 at University.
Complete schedules can be found at the Spokane American Legion web site at www.spokanealb.com.
• The Spokane Dodgers won the Devon Austin tournament in Coeur d’Alene on Sunday, beating University 12-4.
Drew Rasmussen led the Dodgers, going 2 for 5 with three RBIs. Justin Blatner was 2 for 2 with a double and triple. Conner Klein led U-Hi, going 3 for 4 with two RBIs.
• The Washington State Baseball Coaches Association announced its 2011 All-State teams.
Players from the area who were named to the first teams were: Spencer Ansett (Ferris), 4A; Thomas Wakem (University), 3A; Cameron Lowe (Cheney), 2A; and Cameron Duckett (Freeman), 1A/B.
Named to the second teams were: Ryan Krustangel (Ferris), 4A; Nick Scourey (Pullman), Hugo Lemos (East Valley) and Pete Barner (Pullman), 2A; and Justin Altmyer (Freeman), Nick Naccarato (Chewelah) and Sawyer Bardwell (Colville), 1A/B.
Soccer
Sixteen Spokane Shadow youth club Premier teams competed in the 19th annual Rainier Challenge in Puyallup.
The Girls ’97 U-14 Navy, coached by Kara Sharpe, and the Boys ’95 U-16, coached by Nick Funkhouser, won the Samba Division; the Girls ’95 U-16 Sky, coached by Cameron Bushey, won the Copa Division. The Boys ’94 U-17, coached by Matt Leonard, were runners-up in the Samba Division and the Boys ’96 U-15 Navy, coached by Niko Varlamos, were runners-up in the Copa Division.
Basketball
The Central Valley girls basketball team has won three tournaments in consecutive weekends.
The Bears won the varsity and junior varsity championships at Wenatchee June 3-5, the varsity went 7-0 to win the Gonzaga tournament June 10-12 and won the Oregon City (Ore.) tournament June 17-19.
At Gonzaga, the Bears defeated Mt. Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, North Central, Chiawana of Pasco, Kamiakin, Shadle Park and Centennial (Meridian, Idaho) in the championship game.
The players who participated for CV were seniors-to-be Brooke Gallaway, Katie Estey, Maci McLain, Chantelle Fitting and Sydney Emory, sophomores-to-be Victoria Lee-Nauta, Mariah Cunningham and Molly Barnhart and freshman-to-be Naddie Hovern. Coaches were Freddie Rehkow and Judy Walters.
Football
The West defeated the East 23-14 in the Earl Barden All-Star Classic on Saturday in Yakima.
Alex Teade of Colfax threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to Brendan Barrington of Pullman for the East and quarterback Sawyer Bardell of Colville scored on a 3-yard run to account for the East’s scoring.
Bardwell completed 7 of 15 passes for 129 yards and Teade completed 4 of 8 for 53. Brady Arnone of Clarkston also played at QB.
Barrington caught four passes for 108 yards and Joey Strehlo of East Valley caught two for 13.