Locally: Kara Kiefer returns to volleyball staff at Idaho
Kara Kiefer is returning to the University of Idaho volleyball staff, head coach Debbie Buchanan announced.
Kiefer begins her second stint at Idaho after first serving as the Vandals’ director of operations in the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
Prior to Idaho, Kiefer was an interim assistant coach at WSU during the 2009-10 season, and spent the 2010-11 season as WSU’s director of operations.
She played at North Idaho College before going to Tennessee State. At NIC, she was a first-team all-conference selection in 2004 and earned Scenic West Conference tournament MVP honors.
Women’s basketball
Incoming Washington State freshman Maria Kostourkova competed for Portugal, which finished 15th out of 16 teams in the 2015 FIBA U18 European Championship last week in Celje, Slovenia.
The 6-foot-4 center averaged 13.8 points and 11.6 rebounds a game. The native of Sofia, Bulgaria, had six double-doubles in nine games. She also ranked first in the championship with 5.2 offensive rebounds per game and second in double-doubles and ninth in points per game.
Kostourkova and fellow incoming freshman Borislava Hristova, of Varna, Bulgaria, are expected to arrive in Pullman before classes begin Aug. 24.
The Cougars’ first game will be an exhibition against Lewis-Clark State on Nov. 8 in Beasley Coliseum. The regular season begins Nov. 13 when WSU plays host to UC Santa Barbara.
• Alex Earl, who spent the last two seasons as an assistant at Eastern Washington, has been hired for a similar position at Santa Clara.
The former Arizona State player, who played in the Elite Eight in 2009, also previously coached as the top assistant and recruiting coordinator at Lamar (Colorado) Community College.
“Alex is a personable, hard-working young woman who has a bright future in coaching,” EWU coach Wendy Schuller said in a news release.
College Scene
One current, and one former, Gonzaga men’s golfer recently competed in the 111th Canadian Men’s Amateur Championship in Toronto.
Sean Walsh, a senior, tied for 30th with a 4-over 291. Also, recent graduate James Fahy finished 12 over and tied for 64th.
Walsh will be in Olympia Fields, Illinois, to compete in the U.S. Amateur Championship that starts Monday.
• Whitworth University has launched a new Whitworth Athletics Fund to become the primary fundraising arm for the Pirates.
The fund includes a reorganization of the Crimson Club and will include team-specific and corporate-giving efforts. The goal is to increase involvement of both alumni and community fans.
“I’m excited about how these changes might allow us to better connect with our alumni and invite them to invest in the lives of our student-athletes,” Tim Demant, the director of athletics, said in a news release.
Whitworth has also launched a new season- ticket program that will allow fans to purchase sport-specific tickets at either the general seating or premium seating levels. Previously, fans needed to make a contribution to the Crimson Club in order to get season tickets that were not sport-specific and did not qualify as a charitable donation.
Along with those changes, Whitworth is also launching a Jr. Pirates Club for kids 12 and under. Those who join will receive a Jr. Pirates T-shirt, free admission to all Pirates regular-season home games and access to activities and contests.
• Aleisha Hathaway (Shadle Park, basketball), Sofia Marikis (Lakeside, cross country) and Mark Seely (Central Valley, track and field) of Western Washington were named recipients of 2014-15 Division II Athletics Directors Association Academic Achievement Awards.
To receive the honor, a student-athlete must have a cumulative grade-point average of 3.5 or higher on a 4.0 scale, have completed a minimum of two years of college-level work, and been an active member of an intercollegiate team during the last academic year.