Sunday locals: Former EWU coach honored
Jim Wasem, former Eastern Washington baseball coach, is one of seven who will be inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame at the organization’s national convention Jan. 2-5 in Dallas, Texas.
Wasem, a three-sport standout at Illinois Wesleyan University, signed a professional baseball contract out of college with the Chicago White Sox in 1957 and set a minor-league record, collecting hits in his first 12 at-bats as a professional for Holdrege, Neb. He started coaching at the high school level in 1957 and got his first college job in 1972 at Illinois State.
Wasem, who coached more than 900 collegiate games in a 23-year head coaching career, spent nine seasons at EWU, from 1982-90, compiling a 230-250-1 record. Eastern, which competed in the Pacific-10 Conference Northern Division that also included Washington State, Washington, Oregon, Oregon State and Gonzaga, dropped the sport following the 1990 season.
College scene
DJ Tripoli, a senior running back at Whitworth from Burbank, Calif., has been named to the 2013 Capital One Academic All-America Division III second team in football with a 3.93 grade-point average in kinesiology.
• Timmy Costa, freshman goalkeeper on the men’s soccer team, and junior Alisa Stang, a member of the women’s swimming team, were named the Whitworth Athletes of the Month for November.
Costa had a 2-0-1 record during the month, allowing just one goal in 260 minutes with two shutouts. Stang posted the fastest time in the Northwest Conference this season in the 100-meter freestyle, the second fastest time in the 50 free and anchored the Pirates’ 200 and 400 medley relays to conference-best marks in November.
•The Gonzaga University men’s soccer team has been honored by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America for academic excellence for the 11th straight season. The Bulldogs earned a Team Academic Award for the 2012-13 school year with a grade-point average of 3.11.
Of the 874 soccer teams nationally – 274 men and 600 women – who received the award, only five have been honored for more consecutive years than the GU men.
Letters of intent
Gonzaga volleyball: Alexis Clewis, 5-foot-11 outside hitter, Valencia, Calf., first-team all-conference; Kaylie Loewen, 6-1 outside hitter, Penticton, B.C., who has played high-level volleyball at the high school, club and on the sand and regularly trains with a 17-U men’s team. Casper (Wyo.) College volleyball: Ashley Seiler, outside hitter, Cheney, two-time first-team All-Great Northern League.