NJCAA recognizes NIC student-athletes
Four North Idaho College teams and six individual athletes were recognized for their academic and athletic achievements recently by the National Junior College Athletic Association.
Both the North Idaho men’s and women’s basketball teams, the volleyball team and the women’s soccer team were named an All-Academic Team by the NJCAA.
Six NIC athletes were honored with NJCAA Student-Athlete Awards out of nearly 60,000 student-athletes who competed in the NJCAA for the 2011-2012 academic year, representing more than 3,500 teams in 28 different sports.
Soccer players Tia Sharp (3.95 GPA), Lauryn Martel (3.8) and Kristin Kaufman (3.72), basketball player Maria Salmio (3.89), volleyball player Danielle Meehan (3.92) and softball player Brianna Bishop (3.72) all won the Superior Academic Achievement Award.
Basketball
Bryce Currie, a 2004 graduate of Ferris, has been named assistant coach for the Florida Southern College Moccasins.
Currie has been a graduate assistant with the University of Nebraska and Arizona State.
• North Central High School basketball player Kalen Via signed a letter of intent to play for the Blue Mountain Community College Timberwolves in Pendleton, Ore.
Track and field
University of Idaho men’s track and field/cross country signed Santos Vargas of Yakima and William Austin-Cray from Sydney, Australia.
Vargas was among the nation’s top high school seniors in a range of distance events in 2012. At the 2012 State 4A championships, he took fifth in the 3,200 meters at 9 minutes, 16.67 seconds and sixth in the 1,600 at 4:13.92. In cross country, Vargas took third at the 2011 State 4A meet with a school-record 15:13.5 over the 5,000-meter course.
Hockey
Former Spokane Chief center Steven Kuhn will continue his hockey career at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, next season. Kuhn’s education costs will be covered by the Spokane Chiefs Continuing Education Scholarship program.
For every year of hockey played with the Chiefs, each player is guaranteed one year of post-secondary tuition and administrative expenses at a post-secondary institution of their choice.
Kuhn never missed a game in his Chiefs career, playing in 288 consecutive regular-season and 49 straight playoff games.