NIC gets bye, No. 5 seed in NJCAA men’s tournament

North Idaho College received a No. 5 seed and first-round bye in the 24-team NJCAA men’s basketball tournament to be held March 14-19 in Hutchinson, Kansas.

The Cardinals (31-1) will play the winner of a first-round game between No. 12 seed Southwest Tennessee (28-4) and No. 21 seed Spartanburg (South Carolina) Methodist College (26-6).

The Cardinals received one of four at-large bids by the NJCAA tournament selection committee after a perfect 30-0 regular season and a No. 3 ranking in the final NJCAA poll. NIC suffered its only loss to Salt Lake CC in the championship game of the Region 18 tournament. Salt Lake is the No. 13 seed.

Montana State’s Marcus Colbert was named Big Sky Conference Men’s Basketball co-Player of the Week, along with Portland State’s Cameron Forte.

Colbert, a senior from Post Falls, led the Bobcats to two wins last week. Colbert scored 24 points against Northern Colorado on Thursday and 29 points against North Dakota on Saturday.

Baseball

Gonzaga right-hander Brandon Bailey was named WCC/Rawlings Pitcher of the Week by the West Coast Conference after a stellar start and win at No. 7 TCU on March 4.

Bailey easily saw his best outing of the year against the Horned Frogs, striking out nine in 7 innings of work while holding TCU to three runs.

Soccer

The Spokane Shadow announced that long-time Shadow youth coach Kevin Moon will serve as the head coach for the Spokane Shadow women’s first team as it makes its debut in the newly-created Northwest Premier League (NWPL) this spring and summer.

Indoor track

Whitworth’s Katie McKay and Kayla Leland have qualified for the 2016 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships.

Both will be competing in the 800-meter run. McKay will enter the race seeded eighth with a time of 2:13.31 while Leland will enter the race seeded 12th with a time of 2:13.54.