Locally: Former Ferris standout Katelyn Strauss leading North Dakota State College of Science toward national tournament

From staff and news services

Katelyn Strauss has made quite an impression in her first softball season in the Mon-Dak Athletic Conference.

The North Dakota State College of Science freshman pitcher from Ferris High School has been dominating as the third-ranked Wildcats are poised to qualify for the NJCAA Division III national tournament during the Region VIII playoffs this weekend.

Strauss’ fourth no-hitter this season, 4-0 over Dakota College of Bottineau on Saturday, in which she struck out 16, ignited a sweep by the Wildcats of the best-of-three subregional.

The first-team 4A/3A All-Greater Spokane League pitcher in 2021 leads the NJCAA Division III national statistics in strikeouts with 258 in 137 innings and 13.18 per seven innings. Her innings are tied for third nationally, as are her 1.89 ERA and 18 wins in an 18-5 season. She also has two saves and 10 complete games.

In late March, Strauss was named the NJCAA Division III and Mon-Dak (Montana-Dakota) pitcher of the week after she struck out 43 batters in 26⅓ innings while collecting five victories. She broke the school strikeout record of 205 on April 28 when she dealt Mon-Dak champion Dawson CC, a D-II school, its first loss, 4-2. NDSCS finished second.

College scene

Shamrock Campbell, a four-year men’s basketball standout at Carroll College from Ferris, announced he is leaving the Fighting Saints to play his final (COVID) year of eligibility at Point Loma Nazarene in San Diego.

The NCAA Division II school is coached by Matt Logie, who recruited Campbell at Ferris when Logie was head coach at Whitworth. He has been at Point Loma for three seasons, guiding the Sea Lions to the 2021-22 Pacific West Conference regular-season title and a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Campbell has been the Saints’ starting point guard all four seasons, being the Frontier Conference freshman of the year and this past season earning first team All-Frontier and third-team All-America after being All-America honorable mention as a junior.

He ranks 15th all time at the school in scoring (1,534), shot 49.1% from the field and 43% from 3-point range, averaging 2.72 assists per game with a 2.87 assist-to-turnover ratio.

• Krystal Leger-Walker (women’s basketball) and Colton Johnsen (men’s track and field) were named the Washington State recipients of the 2021-22 Pac-12 Tom Hansen Conference Medal at the Cougar athletic department’s annual senior recognition luncheon on Friday.

Winners, judged by the athletic director and senior administrative staff, best reflect the greatest combination of performance and achievement in athletics, scholarship and leadership.

Other award recipients included: Michaela Jones (women’s basketball), Steve Gleason Community Service and Leadership Award; Will Burghardt (men’s basketball) and Chloe Larson (swimming), Pac-12 Conference Postgraduate Scholarship; Dallas Hobbs (football) and Kateryna Maistrenko (rowing), Cougar Athletics Leadership Award; and Jones and Hobbs, Beulah M. Blankenship Outstanding Student-Athlete Award.

• The Idaho men’s tennis team was ousted from the NCAA Division I Tournament with a 4-0 loss to 12th-seeded Texas on Friday in Austin, Texas. The Big Sky champion Vandals finished the season with a 13-11 record.

• Grady Leonard, an Idaho grad student from Coeur d’Alene HS, was named Big Sky Conference field athlete of the week on May 2 for a shot put of 61 feet, ¾ inch at the Desert Heat Classic in Tucson, Arizona, that moved him into the conference lead in the event and 38th in the country.

• North Idaho freshman James Swan was named Northwest Athletic Conference men’s golfer of the week for April 25-May 1 after claiming medalist honors by six strokes in the 44-player Bellevue Invitational field with a 7-under-par 135 (68-67). NIC finished second.

• For a second time this season, Lewiston native Riley Way, a senior infielder at Lewis-Clark State, was named Cascade Collegiate Conference baseball player of the week for April 25-May 1. In three games, Way was 8 for 10 with a home run, two doubles, four RBIs and six runs scored as the Warriors went 3-0.

• Whitworth, which placed second in the conference in men’s and women’s golf and third in men’s and women’s track and field and women’s tennis, finished third in the 2021-22 Northwest Conference McIlroy-Lewis All-Sports Trophy competition. George Fox and Pacific Lutheran were first and second, respectively.

Letters of intent

Idaho women’s soccer: Sierrah VanGesen, F/Attacking MF, Sandpoint.

Swimming

After two years as an assistant, Washington State has promoted Kate Moore to associate head coach of women’s swimming, head coach Matt Leach announced.

“Kate brings excitement, knowledge and a focused recruiting expertise to help grow this family and improve every day, the right way,” Leach said. “It is our honor to promote Kate Moore to associate head coach.”

Moore, who came to WSU after 10 seasons working with the East Carolina men’s and women’s programs, has helped WSU reach new heights in the pool and in the classroom, Leach noted.

Volleyball

New Eastern Washington women’s coach Jon Haruguchi has named an experienced college head coach, Grayson DuBose, and one of his former players, Taylor Muff, to the Eagles’ coaching staff.

DuBose, head coach at Utah State from 2006 to 2019 after a four-year stint at his alma mater, BYU, as a men’s assistant, will serve as Eastern’s associate head coach. The longest-serving head coach in Utah State program history, he won 187 games and two Western Athletic Conference coach of the year honors (2007, 2012).

Muff, who played for Haruguchi at Northern Colorado (2017-20), will be an assistant coach. She was a two-time All-Big Sky Conference selection (2019, 2020) and finished her career in the top seven in three categories: kills, fifth, 1,149; digs, seventh, 1,064; and service aces, third, 114.