Locally: Match Burnham, Justin Martin earn NAIA All-America honors
Match Burnham and Justin Martin, who cut their basketball teeth on courts in the Spokane area, have received NAIA All-America honors.
Burnham, a graduate of Liberty High School in Spangle and a senior at Carroll College in Helena, was named to the NAIA Men’s Division I All-America first team.
Martin, a graduate of Lewis and Clark and a junior at Multnomah University in Portland, was on the NAIA Division II All-America honorable mention list.
Burnham, a 6-foot-8 forward and the Frontier Conference Player of the Year, was honorable mention a season ago. He led the Fighting Saints into the Division I tournament championship game for the first time, where they lost to top-seeded Georgetown (Kentucky).
In 35 games, among the most in NAIA this season, he had averages of 20.4 points to rank ninth in Division I, 6.0 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game. His 226 free throws ranked second nationally. He shot 51 percent from the field, 39 percent on 3-pointers and 86 percent from the foul line.
Martin, a 5-7 guard who played his first two collegiate seasons at Wenatchee Valley, set the Division II scoring pace this season. He scored an NAIA-record 71 points on Dec. 4 in a 126-124 win over No. 17 Warner Pacific and continued to hold the nation’s attention as he compiled a Division II-leading 31.9 points per game average.
In 28 games, Martin had 15 games of 30 or more points – eight of them 40 or more – and scored 892 points that ranked second in Division II. His 159 3-pointers and 5.7 3-point average-per-game both ranked first nationally. He spread the wealth, too. His 5.3 assists per game ranked eighth in Division II.
College scene
Whitworth’s three representatives to the NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championships last weekend in Greensboro, North Carolina, returned with All-America honorable mention awards.
Sophomore Jamie Siegler placed 13th in the women’s 100-yard breaststroke in 1 minute, 4.13 seconds to earn honorable mention. She also was swam the 200 breast; she was 23rd in the preliminaries and didn’t advance to the finals.
Sophomore Ryan Gracy, in his first nationals, finished 14th in the men’s 200 breaststroke in a time of 2:02.69. Senior Eben Schumann placed ninth in the men’s 100 butterfly with a personal-record 48.20.
• Jesse Hunt, who just completed his senior season at Eastern Washington, has been selected to play on a team of Big Sky Conference players in the Dos Equis 3X3U National Championship basketball tournament at Minnesota’s Mall of America from Friday through Sunday.
Hunt, who averaged 14.6 points, a Big Sky-leading 8.7 rebounds and 3.3 assists, will be joined by Sacramento State’s Marcus Graves, Brandon Better from Southern Utah and Brekkott Chapman from Weber State.
The 32-team tournament that starts just before the NCAA men’s Final Four in Minneapolis will pay for $150,000 in prize money with the winning team receiving $100,000 and the right to compete in the 2019 USA Basketball 3x3 Open National Championship this spring.
• NWAC men’s basketball champion North Idaho College had the Eastern Region Most Valuable Player in sophomore RayQuan Evans, East Coach of the Year in Corey Symons and landed freshman Nate Pryor on the first team and sophomore Alphonso Anderson on the second.
Community Colleges of Spokane placed sophomores Dedrick Pakootas (Lewis and Clark) and Garrett White (North Idaho Christian) on the second team.
Evans and Cardinals sophomore Jarod Greene and Spokane sophomore Anthony Parker were named to the East’s All-Defensive team.
• CC Spokane freshman Koyama Young (Lapwai) shared Freshman of the Year honors in the NWAC women’s basketball Eastern Region and was joined on the all-region second team by NIC freshmen Keara Simpson (Lake City) and Heidi Sellman.
The All-Defensive team included freshmen Shania Graham (Republic) from CCS and Alivia Williams from NIC.
• Seven sophomore basketball players from CC Spokane and three from North Idaho received NWAC Winter Sports Academic Excellence awards with GPAs of 3.25 or better.
CCS: Men: JR Delgado (Warden), Anthony Parker. Women: Lachelle Bearcub (Lake Roosevelt), Marissa Blair, Shania Graham (Republic), Sydnee Mongeon, Jessica Olson.
NIC: Men: Jarod Greene. Women: Zosha Krupa, Heidi Sellman.
• Eastern Washington and Idaho captured Big Sky Conference men’s outdoor track athlete of the week honors for their performances last weekend in the Sam Adams Classic at Whitworth.
Eastern senior Larry Still set the school, and his personal, record when he pole vaulted 17 feet, 1 3/4 inches. That broke the previous mark by 1 inch that he set in the 2016 Big Sky Outdoor Championships.
Mack Baxter, an Idaho junior from West Valley, won the 400-meter hurdles with a Big Sky-leading time of 53.09 seconds.
• After a struggle in her two events at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships earlier in the month in Pittsburg, Kansas, Scout Cai opened the outdoor season in impressive fashion last weekend in San Diego.
The Seattle Pacific junior from Colfax broke the 5,000-point mark in the heptathlon, scoring 5,001 to finish third in the Division I-heavy Aztec Invitational, and earning a share of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Women’s Field Athlete of the Week award. It’s her first GNAC weekly outdoor honor to go with one indoors during her sophomore season.
Cai withdrew from the pentathlon at the D-II indoor championships after the first event, the 60-meter hurdles, to save her energy for the pole vault. She made contact with two hurdles in her heat and was far down the points list. But the pole vault didn’t treat her any better. She cleared the opening height of 11-10 1/2 then went out at 12-2 1/2.
• Jenny Sapp, a Lewis-Clark State senior from Potlatch, smashed her school record with an NAIA nation-leading 4,453 points to win the heptathlon at the Sam Adams Classic at Whitworth last weekend and was named Frontier Conference Women’s Outdoor Track Athlete of the Week.
• All-Big Sky Conference Tournament honors after helping their teams reach championship games helped freshmen basketball players Kim Aiken Jr. and Jessica McDowell-White gain Scholar-Athlete of the Month for March from the Eastern Washington athletic department.
Aiken, an East Valley graduate with a 3.63 GPA, was the male selection. He averaged 11.3 points, 8.3 rebounds and 2.0 blocks with a pair of double-doubles at the Big Sky tournament to highlight a month in which he averaged 12.8 points and 7.3 rebounds, with seven blocked shots, six steals and five assists in six total games.
McDowell-White, who has a 4.0 GPA, scored a career-high 19 points in the Eagles’ first-round win that included 5 of 6 on 3-pointers, and capped the tournament with four 3s and 14 points in the championship game. She came off the bench to average 9.6 points and 3.4 assists during March. Her 54 3-pointers during the season tied for the team high, a school freshman record.
• Tierney Silliman, a redshirt junior on the women’s track and field team, and Danny Sinatro, a junior on the baseball team, have been named the Washington State Academic Services Student-Athletes of the Month for March.
Silliman is majoring in social sciences and minoring in human resource management with a 3.62 GPA. An active member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, she is a two-time Pac-12 Track & Field All-Academic honorable mention who began the 2019 outdoor season with third place in the 100-meter dash at the Sam Adams Classic.
Sinatro is majoring in marketing with a 3.2 GPA. In his third year starting in center field for the Cougars, he is third on the team with 21 hits, and is tied for the Pac-12 lead with four triples. He was a 2018 Pac-12 All-Academic honorable mention.
• Eastern Washington student-athletes concluded winter quarter with a collective 3.28 GPA and the 35th straight quarter the Eagles have combined for a department-wide 3.0 average.
Hall of fame
Keisa Monterola, who concluded an All-American pole vaulting career at Eastern Washington University in 2014, was recently inducted in the Venezuela Hall of Fame of Athletics for her award-winning collegiate and international career.
The four-time Big Sky Conference champion still holds EWU’s indoor (14-4) and outdoor (14-0) records. The indoor mark is also the Big Sky record. She received her degree in 2014 in interdisciplinary studies in the school of social studies.
She earned her first NCAA Division I All-America honor after placing fifth in the pole vault at the 2012 Indoor Championships. She is one of three female DI All-Americans in EWU’s track and field history and the only one indoors.
Monterola was the first Venezuelan to win a world athletics medal, capturing silver at the World Junior Championships in 2005. She came to hold national, South America, Central America, Caribbean and Pan America records in almost every category of the pole vault. Her 14-4 for EWU in January 2012 established a Venezuela indoor record.
Letters of intent
Gonzaga volleyball: Kirra Schulz, Libero, San Clemente, California; Alisa Kim, Libero, Bothell, Washington (North Creek HS).
Shooting
Led by Taylor Christian, Spokane Junior Rifle Club captured the top three individual spots and the team title at the 2019 Civilian Marksmanship Program Washington State Junior Olympic 3-Position Air Rifle Championships last month.
Christian, 17, a student at Spokane Valley Tech, shot 592 out of a possible 600 at the Spokane Rifle Club to win her first state championship.
Mason Maystrovich, 17, Northwest Christian, shot 589 to place second and Cassidy Wilson, 18, homeschooled, shot 585 for third as SJRC dominated the 50-shooter field that also had a section shoot in Olympia.
Those three qualified for the CMP National Championships July 12-14 at Camp Perry, Ohio, and led the SJRC Gold team to the state title with a national-qualifying score of 2,344. They’ll be joined by Ben Tafoya, 16, Gonzaga Prep, who placed seventh. His score of 578 was just four points shy of earning him a national spot as an individual.
Summer camps
The Spokesman-Review is accepting submissions for summer camps that will appear in the 2019 Summer Plus section, which publishes May 1. They will also be included in an online directory at spokesman.com that will be available all spring and summer.
However, those received after March 14 will be included in the online directory, but not guaranteed for the print version.
Information about any residential or day camp in our readership will be accepted at no charge, including athletic camps, academic camps, theater camps, special needs camps and equine camps.
Please include the camp’s name, location, cost, age range and a short description, along with contact information for the public, such as a phone number, email or website.
Information can be submitted by email to summercamps@spokesman.com or uploaded online at spokesman.com/summercamps-form/