Locally: Eastern Washington will honor Alvin Snow with spot in its hall of fame
Eastern Washington’s first NCAA Division I basketball All-American is going to take his rightful place in the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame.
Alvin Snow, who capped a stellar four-year career in 2004 by earning NCAA Division I All-America honorable mention, will be inducted with the Class of 2018 on Sept. 22.
Snow led the Eagles to 69 wins from 2000-2004 and into the National Invitation Tournament in 2003 followed in 2004 by the school’s first Big Sky Conference Tournament title and a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
“Alvin was the first guy to buy into what we were doing here,” said his coach, Ray Giacoletti, of the four seasons they spent together at Eastern. “He was a mainstay here, and was kind of the heart and soul of our team. His versatility and all the things he contributed is what separated him from other players and earned him the honors he received.”
He was a three-time All-Big Sky first-team selection, the conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2002 and the MVP as a senior. He scored 1,396 points with 318 assists and 212 steals in 118 games.
Snow played professionally for more than 10 years and now works as a player representative out of Seattle, where he was a standout at Franklin High School. One of his clients is former Eagles standout Jacob Wiley.
Bowling
Shaynie Montee cooled off at the wrong time during the Junior Bowlers Tour stop at Valley Bowl last Sunday. That was just about the time Blake English heated up.
The resulting turnabout was a victory for English and a runner-up finish for Montee, who had rolled 900 and 868 four-game series during qualifying to nail down the No. 1 spot going into the five-person roll-offs.
Meanwhile, English was struggling to get into the playoffs. He was fifth after the first four-game set and held on by eight pins after the second four-game block.
But then he took it to another level. He defeated No. 4 qualifier Kyle Groves 267-192 with the day’s high game, bested No. 3 John Hilden 245-242, then knocked off No. 2 Kaleb Ramelow 227-209 to get a shot at Montee. English won that one 206-188 for the title.
English rolled a 945 series in the playoffs with a 236 average. Montee led the girls with a 258 game.
Ramelow, who finished third, entered the playoffs with a 210 average; Hilden, who was fourth, had averaged 214; and Groves, who placed fifth, had averaged 208.
The next JBT is next Sunday at Deer Park Lanes.
College scene
The first week of the year treated Whitworth junior Kyle Roach well.
He was the Northwest Conference Student-Athlete of the Week in men’s basketball after averaging 26.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists in two Pirates’ victories, and was named Whitworth’s Male Student-Athlete of the Month for December.
Roach, from Marinwood, California, averaged 15.3 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists as the Pirates went 5-1 in December. He closed the month with 25 points, seven assists and five rebounds against Calvin College.
Madison Moffat, a junior basketball guard, is the Female Student-Athlete of the Month. She averaged a double-double in December – 12.4 points and 11.0 rebounds – while making 38 percent of her 3-pointers and picking up 2.4 steals per game.
- After sweeping the Big Sky Conference men’s and women’s tennis championships in 2017, Idaho is predicted to repeat again this season according to the league’s head coaches. Northern Arizona was selected second in both polls. Eastern Washington was picked fifth in the women’s poll and tied for eighth in the men’s poll.
- Gonzaga student-athletes compiled the second highest fall grade-point average in school history, and fourth highest of any semester, with a 3.35 GPA. Seventeen individuals had perfect 4.0 GPAs, led by four each in women’s rowing and women’s cross country, and 149 earned President’s List (52 with GPAs of 3.85-4.0) or Dean’s List (3.50-3.84) honors. Men’s golf had the highest team GP at 3.61 and 13 of 14 teams had cumulative GPAs of 3.0 or higher.
Calvin Berstler of Cheney and Logan Feasline of St. Maries are members of the Air Force Academy men’s track and field team. Berstler, a senior, earned All-Mountain West honors in the outdoor and indoor seasons as a junior. He was third in the decathlon outdoors with a career-best 6,709 points and placed fourth in the heptathlon indoors with the fourth-best point total (5,313) in Academy history. He also competes in the hurdles and high jump. Feasline, a junior, was All-Mountain West after finishing third in the discus during the 2017 conference outdoor championships with a career-best, team-leading throw of 171 feet, 2 inches. He also competes in the hammer, javelin and shot put.
Hockey
Don Cherry, a flamboyant hockey broadcasting icon in Canada who spent a season of his lengthy playing career in Spokane 50 years ago, has been selected as a head coach for the CHL/NHL Top Prospects game Jan. 25 in Guelph, Ontario.
Cherry, a defenseman who played 19 seasons of junior and minor league pro hockey, spent the 1962-63 season with the Spokane Comets in the professional Western Hockey League. He never played in the NHL but had coaching stints with the Boston Bruins, with whom he was named NHL Coach of the Year in 1976, and Colorado Rockies.
Letters of intent
Gonzaga baseball – Alex Shanks, OF, Mercer Island, Washington.
Gonzaga men’s golf – Grant Johnson, Walnut Creek, California; Keith Lobis, Camas, Washington.
Shooting
Two members of the Spokane Junior Rifle Team competed in the three-day USA Shooting Air Gun Championships, a qualifier for international competition, last month at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Mason Maystrovich, 16, Northwest Christian, placed 70th out of 125 male shooters, and 53rd out of 85 juniors, during days one and two and was 61st overall out of 97 on day three.
Taylor Christian, 16, Spokane Valley Tech, was 144th out of 177 female shooters overall and 104th out of 142 juniors during days one and two and 90th overall out of 129 on day three.
Soccer
Eric Espinoza, a two-year Spokane Shadow first-team player, is attending the National Premier Soccer League Player Showcase this weekend, in Kissimee, Florida.
The former Whitworth standout from San Jose, California, is among 17 players named to the West Region team for the showcase. The midfielder has been a leader for the Shadow First Team the past two summers. The MLS draft is Jan. 19 in Philadelphia.
Espinoza was a three-time All-Northwest Conference selection at Whitworth, being named to the first team as a senior after back-to-back second-team accolades as a sophomore and junior.