North wins Shrine 11-man game
North Idaho’s best football players from last year’s senior class haven’t played a game in eight months.
And when they took the Kibbie Dome field Saturday for the sixth annual Shriner All-Star game, it looked like no one had played a football game in eight months.
Split into North and South teams before about 1,400 fans, the North won 7-0 on a first-quarter touchdown pass from Lakeland’s Kam Kiefer to Bonners Ferry’s Travis Stolley. But that score, a distant memory by game’s end, seemed more incidental than vital as ugly football took center stage.
To wit: the South team turned the ball over four times in the first half … and had just 2 yards of offense. The North team, meanwhile, moved the ball more easily but still had three first-half turnovers and lost possession on downs eight times.
“Offensive firepower,” said North coach John Yegge of St. Maries, tongue firmly in cheek. Kiefer seemingly ended the game with three minutes left when he booted a 54-yard punt that was downed on the South’s 2-yard line. But the South offense, dormant all day long, suddenly clicked for a brief moment and hit on a 55-yard pass from Joe Reiner of Clarkston – which supplied players to fill out the roster – to high school teammate Peter Leonard.
But the South returned to the game’s script and stalled on the North 23-yard line, turning it over on downs with less than a minute left and ending the game.
In the preceding eight-man game, the South won 28-8 with all points coming in the first half. The North briefly took an 8-6 lead but Deary’s Matt Hansen scored on a touchdown scamper to give the South the lead .
Baseball
Scott Parrish threw a complete-game four-hitter, and Steve Bralver went 2 for 3 and had a bases-loaded, three-run double as the Spokane RiverHawks beat the Kelowna Falcons 6-1 at Spokane Falls Community College.
Parrish, who plays for Central Washington University, allowed just one run and one walk while striking out seven to improve his record to 1-3.
Jaime Pedroza went 2 for 4 with a pair of RBIs for Spokane (5-18) and Nick Froman, a junior at Whitworth, went 2 for 3. The Falcons dropped to 8-9 on the season.
The win evened the series at one game apiece.
Golf
Jordan Madison birdied the 28th, 29th and 32nd holes to hold off Travis Andrews 4 and 3 to win the 104th Pacific Northwest Amateur Championship at Oakbrook Golf & Country Club in Lakewood, Wash.
Madison, a Washington State golfer from Pasco, was one up after 27 holes before making his late charge and finishing off Andrews, a University of Washington golfer from Auburn who entered the tournament as the No. 60 seed.