Locally

Humanitarian Hall to induct Bledsoe

Former Washington State football quarterback Drew Bledsoe, a 12-year NFL veteran, will be enshrined in the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame on June 8 in Boise.

Bledsoe, a former No. 1 NFL draft choice who joined the Dallas Cowboys in the off-season, will be joined at the 11th annual induction ceremonies by 1936 Olympic runner Louis Zamperini and three-time equestrian Olympian Kathy Kusner.

The shrine annually inducts world-class athletes who are role models in their communities and have a strong record of humanitarian efforts. Ceremonies begin at 6 p.m. June 8 at Boise’s Centre on the Grove. Tickets are $50 for adults, $16.50 for youth under 12 and are available by calling the Hall at (208) 343-7224.

Basketball

The Spokane Blazers 13-and-under girls team qualified for the AAU national tournament in Overland Park, Kan., for a second straight year by winning its division at the Inland Empire Regional April 22-24 in Yakima.

The Blazers’ successes have included winning the national-level Las Vegas Easter Classic.

Representing the team in the July nationals will be: Maggie Thompson, Chessey Thomas, Mary Blevens, Daisy Burke and Emily Travis, all Spokane; Katelyn Loper, Post Falls; Kellie McCann-Smith, Asotin; Katie Baker, Coeur d’Alene; and Kiki Teasley, Lapwai. Steve Klees and Greg Presley are the coaches.

Bowling

When she stepped onto the lanes in Puyallup last weekend for the Washington State Women’s Tournament, Michelle Sommer of Priest River was working with three hours’ sleep.

So you could hardly blame her as the frames went by and the strikes kept coming if the thought crossed her mind: “I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not.”

She wasn’t. In her first game of the five-woman team competition, the 38-year-old mother of two, who has been bowling since she was 18, collected her first 300 game.

“I was just zoned,” she said, noting she didn’t notice whether everything else stopped in the house so others could group around and watch. “I was so tuned to my game, when I threw the last ball, I just threw my arms up in the air and started crying. I knew I was going to strike.”

Sommer, whose husband, Bob, has registered 18 perfect games, has come close to a 300, most notably four years ago at Lilac Lanes when she, Bob and friend Duane Jones combined for a three-man scratch trio record 868 game. Bob and Jones rolled 300s and Michelle had a 268.

“Two 10 pins kept me from a 300,” she remembers. “One in the first frame and one in the 10th.”

•Cory Porter, an 18-year-old freshman at Spokane Falls Community College, rolled his first 300 game April 17 in the 2+2 League at Lilac Lanes.

Porter, a member of the league for three years, had a 717 series.

College scene

Community Colleges of Spokane has chosen track star Teona Perkins and golfer Aaron Biel as its female and male scholar-athletes of the month for April, respectively.

Perkins, from Kennewick High School with a 3.80 grade-point average, is No. 1 in the NWAACC in the 800 meters with a time of 2:13.71, which is third in school history. Her 5-foot-6 high jump is fifth in school history and she was second in the NWAACC pentathlong with 3,492 points, third in school history. She has signed with Seattle Pacific.

Biel, a freshman from Lewis and Clark with a 3.5 GPA, finished first at the Bigfoot Invitational with a 4-under-par 138 and tied for first at the Columbia Basin Invitational with a 1-under 215. He tied for fifth at the Southwestern Oregon Invitational.

•Kate Benz, who will be a junior on the Washington State women’s basketball team next season, has been invited to participate in the ninth annual NCAA Leadership Conference, May 29-June 2 at Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

She is one of 324 NCAA student athletes selected from 1,166 nominees to discuss issues in intercollegiate athletics and enhance leadership skills.

•Idaho State women’s basketball player Christa Brossman of Pullman is among the 2005 Scholar Athlete Award winners announced by the Big Sky Conference.

Two from each school are selected for their athletic and academic accomplishments and must have a 3.2 GPA or higher, be a member of the graduating class or have completed their eligibility.

•Community Colleges of Spokane landed five freshmen on the NWAACC All-Eastern Division softball first team, including freshman outfielder Stephanie Day from Colville, who tied for seventh in the conference in hitting at .479.

The others are pitcher Jessie LaPlante from Lakeland; Monica Judd, infield, Lakeside; Morgan Thompson, second base, West Valley; and Jessica Miles, outfield, Missoula, Mont.

•Two members of the Pacific Lutheran softball team from the Spokane area, Jackie Nuechterlein from Nine Mile Falls and Liz Stuhlmiller from Edwall, have been selected to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Division III All-West Region second team.

Nuechterlein hit .300 with 13 RBIs and stole 25 bases in 27 attempts. Stuhmiller hit .345 with 10 RBIs.

•Layne Pavey, a Montana State-Billings senior softball player from Lewis and Clark, added another academic award to her list of achieve- ments. She was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VII College Division team with a 3.91 GPA in sociology and pre-law.

•Western Washington junior Brian Nelson, a 2002 graduate of Lewis and Clark, was second in a 1-2 finish for the Vikings in the men’s Division II road ride that helped the school finish second in the men’s team race at the Collegiate Cycling National Championships near Lawrence, Kan., last weekend.

Nelson and teammate Nicolas Clayville pulled away on the third and final lap on the relatively flat 23.2-mile loop, with Clayville earning a 34-second win when Nelson began cramping in the final straightaway. Clayville and Nelson also finished 1-2 in their conference championships.

•Justine Scott of Spokane, a 2003 graduate of Lewis and Clark and a sophomore at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and her teammates will compete in the NCAA Division III national rowing championships this weekend in Sacramento, Calif.

Scott was on the Colby crew that won the New England Rowing Championship as freshmen in 2004. The school won the Division III national championship in 2003.

•Three rowers from area schools will be in shells for nationally top-ranked Western Washington in the NCAA Division II women’s national rowing championships this weekend in Sacramento, Calif.

Rowing for the Vikings’ varsity eight are Lindsay Mann-King, a sophomore from Colville, and Amelia Whitcomb, a freshman from Ferris. In the varsity four with coxswain is Samantha Marikis, a freshman from Republic.

Western, which won both regional championships last weekend, is going to nationals for a second straight year and third time in four years. The Vikings placed third last year after being runner-up in its two previous appearances.

•Three former North Idaho high school players – Isaac Myers, Lakeland; Jesse Cain, Post Falls Christian; and Don Wilder, Lake City – are with the Multnomah Bible College men’s basketball team that is on a two-week tour of Tiawan playing local teams and conducting youth clinics.

•Three sophomore pitchers on the Community Colleges of Spokane baseball team were named NWAACC Academic All-Conference.

They are Joe Byers from Lewis and Clark, with a 3.87 GPA; Cody Harmon from St. Maries, with a 3.27 GPA; and Brandon Zimmerman, from Shadle Park.

Fishing

Joey Nania, 14, of Liberty Lake caught 9.20 pounds of bass from Eloika Lake last Sunday to top the 16-angler field in the first Eastern Washington Junior Bassmasters State Qualifier for the state tournament to be held May 29 at Banks Lake.

Other qualifiers in the 11-14-year-old age group were Chase Ratchford and Justin Dodd of Kennewick, Joe Harper of Spokane and Tyler Wilson of Nine Mile Falls.

Qualifiers in the 15-18 division were Matt Hodgkinson, Scott Hodgkinson, Preston Harper and Mickey Maggard of Spokane and Eric Moody of Newport.

State age-division winners qualify for the junior division of the Bassmasters Classic World Championships in July near Pittsburgh.

Football

Dave Telford, a former assistant at Eastern Washington who has been offensive coordinator at Portland State for four years, is leaving the Vikings program to pursue a teaching career and spend more time with his family.

Golf

Kent Brown of Colville and partner Chris Maletis of Portland rallied on the last nine holes Thursday to win the 23rd annual Society of Seniors-Ed Tutwiler Memorial four-ball tournament in Andover, Kan.

Brown and Maletis made four birdies in the last eight holes en route to overcoming a four-stroke deficit at the start of the final round for a second straight 66 and 54-hole total of 12-under-par 201 and a one-stroke victory.

Gymnastics

Amy Brandle of Northwest Gymnastics Academy, a junior at University High School, medaled in floor exercise for the third straight year in the Level 10 Junior Olympic Championships last weekend in Ontario, Calif.

Brandle, who placed seventh with a score of 9.55, is on the Region 2 national team and was invited to compete in an international meet in Costa Rica in June. She also will compete with her team in the Cancun Classic in January in Mexico.

Cortney Gilbert led the showing by members of the NWGA Level 4 team at the state meet last weekend in Kirkland. She won the state title in the 12-and-up age group in the vault with a 9.575 and was seventh in the all-around with a 36.5.

Amber Demaine medaled in the 11-year-old group in the all-around with a 34.975.

Other NWGA state competitors were Jennifer Power, Rebekah Hagreen, Audrey Wadhwani, Taryn Miller, Courtney Swanson, Shelby Wiggs, Alyssa George and Mackenzie Dandoy.

Hockey

Three players from Spokane were chosen from the Pacific District Select Camp to participate in their respective age classifications during this summer’s USA Youth Hockey National Select Festival.

Jeff Smith, who plays for Shattuck’s-St. Mary’s (Minnesota) prep school, and Andrew Vega of Shadle Park and the Spokane Braves, will compete at the Select 17 Festival, July 9-15, in St. Cloud, MN.

Evan Witt of North Central, who also plays for the Spokane Braves, will compete at the Select 16 Festival, June 25-July 1, in Rochester, NY.

Volleyball

Lake City volleyball standouts Lauren Stern and Amy Lawson have made decisions on where they’re headed this fall.

Lawson, a 6-foot middle blocker, has signed with the University of Maine, an NCAA Division I school. Stern, a 5-10 setter, is headed to Golden West College, a community college in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Stern was the Inland Empire League player of the year last season and Lawson was a second-team all-league pick. LC won the league title and placed fourth at state.

•Katrina Johnson of Mt. Spokane, a 5-10 outside hitter and second-team All-Greater Spokane League selection, has signed a national letter of intent with Western Oregon University.

Co-captain of her volleyball and basketball teams, Johnson was honored by Gatorade with a Will to Win award.

Wrestling

Two-time Idaho 5A state champion Ryan Allen of Coeur d’Alene has signed with Dana College, an NAIA school in Blair, Neb.

Allen, who captured state titles at 189 pounds, is just one of two Vikings in school history to have won two state titles. Ranked 22nd in the nation in USA Wrestling magazine’s final ratings, he had a 139-35 career record.

Miscellany

Marshall Greene, 23, of Spokane placed second among individual elite entries in the annual Pole, Pedal and Paddle race near Bend, Ore., May 14.

Greene’s time of 1:49:48 was fifth overall among the 700 individuals and teams and only five minutes behind the winning two-person team.

Individual racers had no relief as they negotiated the course’s six stages, including a downhill ski run, a 5-mile cross country ski, a 22-mile bicycle, a 5-mile run, a 2-mile paddle up and downstream on the Deschutes River, and a one-third-mile sprint to the finish.

Greene, a graduate of Lewis and Clark, is training for a shot at the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team.