Ferris Dominates District Golf Play

Ferris freshman Lani Elston shot an even-par 72 at Esmeralda Golf Course on Thursday to earn medalist honors at the District 8-4A girls golf tournament.

Elston finished the two-day event at 142, six shots ahead of Lewis and Clark’s Tricia Bassett. Mead’s Sara Northcutt was third at 151.

The top 10 advance to the State 4A tournament, May 26-27 in Vancouver. Ferris, last year’s AAA champion, advanced Elston, Bridget Johnson, Jamie Seefried and Kate Parks.

All the top 10 after the first day of district remained in the group except Shadle Park’s Desiree Cooper, who tied for 10th with Rogers’ Shana Bonnett, but lost a one-hole playoff. Bonnett had been 18th after the first round.

Baseball

Panorama League regular-season champion St. George’s and Bi-County League runner-up Liberty both won in subdistricts on their home fields to advance to Monday’s District 7-B semifinals.

Ben Helms (11-0) pitched a six-hitter and Dan Dhillon and Pat Thomas had three runs batted in apiece as St. George’s (22-1) defeated Almira/Coulee-Hartline 10-4.

Dhillon tripled and doubled for the Dragons, who meet Bi-County champion Davenport (16-2) at 9 Monday morning at Seafirst Stadium in the district semifinals.

Eric Smith pitched a two-hitter and Mike Pottratz had two hits, including a double, as Liberty (14-6) defeated Odessa 15-1. Liberty meets Panorama tourney champion Curlew (19-4) at 11:30 a.m. in the other semifinal at Seafirst.

Monday’s losers play at 2 p.m. for third and fourth seeds to region. Winners meet at 4:30 for Nos. 1 and 2 to region.

Odessa (9-11) and ACH (12-8) play at noon Monday at Whitworth College for the fifth and final regional berth.

Blinn Carstensen’s no-out, two-run double in the bottom of the seventh gave ACH a 6-5 victory over Northwest Christian in the first game at St. George’s, a loser-out.

Eric Bell’s homer in the top of the seventh gave NWC a 5-4 lead. NWC, State B runner-up last year, finished 18-5.

Odessa eliminated Republic 13-3 in the first game at Liberty. Republic finished 15-9.

Softball

The first round of the District 8-4A tournament at Franklin Park was rained out.

The winner-to-regional, loser-out games were rescheduled for today, with No. 3 Ferris (12-8) vs. No. 6 Lewis and Clark (9-10) at 3:45 p.m., and No. 4 Shadle Park (12-7) vs. No. 5 Rogers (10-9) at 6.

The second round of district was moved to Saturday at Franklin, with two 10 a.m. games. No. 1 University (19-1) will play the Rogers/Shadle winner and No. 2 Mead will play the Ferris/LC winner.

The third round, for final seeding to regional, will remain at Franklin at 3:45 and 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Tennis

Defending champion Keli Heidenson of West Valley defeated unseeded Joel Kathryns of Cheney 6-2, 6-0 for the boys singles title of the District 7-3A tournament at East Valley.

Heidenson never dropped a set in his three matches. Kathryns, who played No. 4 singles for Cheney this year, defeated third-seeded Brian Tucker of Clarkston and second-seeded Dennis Winters of EV on the way to the title match.

Top-seeded Sharon Wentz of EV won the girls title, topping teammate Daphne Willmschen 6-0, 6-3 in the final.

All four finalists qualify for the regional tourney May 22-23 in Yakima.

The District 8-4A tourney was postponed by rain and pushed back to today. U-Hi is site director for the tourney, which is scheduled to finish Monday.

Track and field

First-day results of the District 7-3A meet were not reported.

Idaho baseball

Coeur d’Alene (19-9) outlasted Pocatello 15-14 in the first round of the State A-1 tournament at Nampa, Idaho.

Players from both teams did their best to keep their footing on a field slickened by a steady drizzle. The game included 18 walks and 22 hits.

CdA took the lead for good with four runs in the sixth inning.

In a rematch of last spring’s championship game, Coeur d’Alene will face two-time state champion Boise (25-1) tonight in a semifinal at 6:30 PDT. Hillcrest will play Eagle in the other semifinal.

Trent Duffey pitched and batted St. Maries (11-13) to a 4-0 victory over South Fremont in the opening round of the State A-2 tournament at Ontario, Ore.

Duffey, a soft-tossing sophomore, allowed six hits and struck out eight. He also singled, doubled and scored twice.

St. Maries will face Emmett today at 1 p.m. in the semifinals. American Falls and Vallivue will meet in the other semifinal.