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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

S-R’s Blanchette award finalist

From Local And Wire Reports

Two former winners are among the five men with area ties who are state finalists for National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association annual awards.

Retired Spokesman-Review columnist John Blanchette, who continues to write for the newspaper as a freelance correspondent, is a seven-time Washington Sportswriter of the Year. He’s joined as a Washington finalist by Dave Boling, a former S-R writer now with the Tacoma News Tribune. Blanchette last won the Washington award in 2009.

Tom Morris, the University of Idaho radio play-by-play announcer, is a finalist for the Idaho Sportscaster of the Year award that he has won three times, the last in 2002. He has been the main voice of UI football and basketball since 2005.

Washington Sportscaster of the Year finalists include Mike Boyle, the radio voice of the Spokane Chiefs hockey team and Spokane Indians baseball team, and Larry Weir, the voice of Eastern Washington University athletics.

Boyle has broadcast Chiefs games since 2002 and Indians games since 2011. Weir is in his 24th year broadcasting EWU football games and his 22nd calling men’s basketball.

Winners will be announced the second week of January.

Bowling

It was an up-and-down day for scoring at the Junior Bowlers Tour stop at North Bowl last Sunday, scores changing with lane conditions, but one thing was consistent – the competition between Clint Norlen and Toby Mertens.

Norlen qualified first and won three match games to take the top spot going into the roll-offs and Mertens was second after they went back and forth during the qualifying rounds.

But after Mertens defeated the No. 3 qualifier, Mason Georgeadis, he got a shot at Norlen in the championship match. Mertens won, 204-203, to cap the day in which he had a 215 average. Norlen averaged 214.

Goergeadis finished third, Marcus Goss was fourth and Anthony Huck fifth.

Shelby Snyder had the high game for the girls, a 205, and Kendall Weller’s 258 led the boys.

Basketball

Rob Davis, a veteran on the Spokane Hoopfest staff, has been named site/facilities manager for the world’s largest annual 3-on-3 street basketball tournament.

Davis, special products producer at KXLY, is Hoopfest broadcast manager at Nike Center Court as well as the center court coordinator for other organization events. He will replace Randy Smith, who is retiring at the end of the year.

College scene

Kayla McClathery, an Alaska Anchorage sophomore middle blocker from Coeur d’Alene High School, has been named the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Newcomer of the Year in volleyball and a first-team all-conference selection.

McClathery, a two-time all-state and All-Inland Empire League player at CdA, transferred from Texas A&M-Kingsville after her freshman season last year. She ranks fifth in GNAC hitting percentage (.306) and seventh in blocks (0.99 per set).

Two other area players were All-GNAC honorable mention – Madi Farrell, a Northwest Nazarene freshman middle blocker from Lake City, and Kaely Kight, a Central Washington senior setter from Mead.

Josh Straughan, a Stillman College junior from Colton, has rebounded from a football season-ending broken clavicle midway through last season to be named the All-Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference first-team quarterback.

Straughan led the conference in quarterback rating at 154.6 and finished second in passing, hitting 148 of 249 passes for 2,020 yards and 24 touchdowns with six interceptions. He also was second in total offense, averaging 209.6 yards a game for the NCAA Division II school from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that finished 5-5. He was twice the SIAC Offensive Player of the Week.

In three seasons, Straughan has completed 450 passes for 5,205 yards and 51 touchdowns.

• Six Washington State athletes with area ties, five of them women, were named to 2014 Pac-12 Conference cross country All-Academic teams.

The women included two first-team selections, Amanda Henderson, a junior from Pullman with a 3.99 GPA in psychology, and Steffie Pavey, a sophomore from Priest River, with a 3.96 GPA and an undeclared major.

Honorable mention went to Kiah Condos, a junior from Central Valley, 3.12, sport science; Alexys Garcia, sophomore, Pullman, 3.52, undeclared major; and Morgan Willson, redshirt sophomore, Colfax, 3.39, management and operations.

Alex Simpson, a sophomore from Asotin with a 3.79 GPA in communication, was on the men’s second team.

Letters of intent

  • Women’s golf: Gonzaga – Bianca Pagdanganan, Antipolo, Phillipnes; and Jena Gao, Shanghai, China.