Cda Girls Place Third

It was mission more than accomplished for the Coeur d’Alene High girls basketball team.

Heck, the Vikings’ objective at the start of the season, with an underclassmen-laden team back from an 8-15 year, was to be competitive and finish among the top three of six Inland Empire League teams.

That achieved, the rest has been frosting. Coeur d’Alene finished with a sweet taste in its mouth Saturday, capturing the third-place trophy in the State A-1 tournament with a 40-33 victory over Madison in the Idaho Center in Nampa, Idaho.

It’s a taste the Vikings plan to savor. But they hope it makes them hungry for more next year.

“It took a while for it to sink in that we were going to state,” CdA senior wing Krissi Ruiz said. “So it’ll take a while for this to hit me. This team deserves what it’s gotten, if not more. Going into the year we didn’t even think it’d be possible to go to state. So that trophy means a lot.”

The trophy is CdA’s first since 1993-94 when the Viks went 25-0. That was the year before the school split when Lake City High opened.

CdA (21-7) established control early, building as much as an 11-point lead late in the second quarter before taking a 24-15 advantage into halftime.

Swimming

Whitworth seemed to have all the stars but not enough depth at the Northwest Conference swimming championships.

Whitworth’s Erin Kay was named women’s swimmer of the meet. Brent Rice of Whitworth was named men’s swimmer of the meet. And Whitworth coach Tom Dodd was named coach of the year for men and women.

In team results, Whitworth was not quite as successful although the Pirates finished second to Puget Sound in the women’s division and third in the men’s to Linfield and Puget Sound.

Rice won his three individual races (200-meter individual medley, 400 IM and 200 butterfly), all in meet-record time. Kay was also a three-event winner, taking the 200 IM, 400 IM and 200 breaststroke.

Whitworth won 11 of the 18 women’s events and nine of 18 men’s events.

Baseball

Gonzaga scored eight runs in the first four innings and used a solid two-hit, six-inning pitching performance from starter Barry Mathews to earn a 10-5 non-conference victory over Washington State on Saturday at Posse Stadium in Pasco.

Mathews didn’t give up a hit through the first three innings and scattered two hits and two runs in six innings. He struck out four, walked five and picked up his first victory of the season.

Gonzaga’s four-run first inning included a leadoff double by shortstop Bo Hart and a run-scoring double by Mathews.

Gonzaga scored four more runs in the fourth to take an 8-0 lead. Hart started that inning by reaching on an error. After an RBI single by Kevin Taylor, Jason Bay hit a three-run home run.

Dusty Edler and Steve Curran hit two-run home runs for Washington State.

WSU’s Jason Grove was 2 for 3 with an RBI and two runs scored. He extended his hitting streak to 13 games and raised his average to .571.

The Bulldogs (2-3) and Cougars (4-2) play again today at 1 p.m. at Posse Stadium.

Track

Washington State’s Bernard Lagat captured his second and third races Saturday at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships in Reno, Nev., highlighting a successful day for the Cougars.

WSU’s women’s team won the 14-team competition. The Cougars finished second, four points short of Stanford, in the men’s competition.

Lagat, a junior from Kenya, won the men’s 800 meters in an NCAA automatic qualifying and meet-record time of 1:47.07, and took the mile race in 4:08.57. Friday night, Lagat claimed the 3000-meter race in a meet-record time of 8:03.57.

WSU’s women soundly defeated the mixed field of Pac-10 and Big West schools with 117 points. Arizona was second with 99 followed by Arizona State’s 67 and Stanford’s 62-1/2.

WSU won the men’s competition last year, but Stanford prevailed Saturday with 128 points. Washington State scored 124, followed by Arizona State with 86 and Utah with 66.5 among the 10 teams.

Washington State is competing without All-American thrower Ian Waltz who is applying for a medical redshirt for the 1999 indoor season because of a torn tendon in his throwing hand.

Winners for the Cougar women included Alishia Booterbaugh in the 800 meters (2:12.24), Ellannee Richardson in the 55-meter hurdles (8.04), Whitney Evans in the high jump (5-11-1/2) and Francesca Sewell in the long jump (19-11-1/2).

Arend Watkins, an All-American hurdler from San Jose, Calif., won the men’s 55-meter hurdles in a time of 7.36 after clocking a personal-best time of 7.29 in the prelims.

The next competition for selected Cougars track and field athletes will be the NCAA Div. I Indoor Championships March 5-6 at Indianapolis.