Locally: Area youths win state bass titles
Two area youngsters captured state championships last weekend in Moses Lake to qualify for the Junior Bassmaster World Championships in South Carolina in February.
Dakota Jones, 13, a middle school student from Mead, won the 11-14-year-old division, and Brandon Schmidt, 15, a freshman at Central Valley High School, captured the 15-18-year-old division in the Washington State BASS Federation Nation Inc. Junior State Championships.
Both fish out of the Inland Empire Bass Club.
Jones, competing in his third state tournament, earned his first title by hauling in nine fish in two days that weighed 30.12 pounds. His five-fish take the first day totaled 19.10 pounds and included an 8.22-pound largemouth.
Schmidt, competing in a division that had four state champions and one world titlist, came out of the first day in third place with a five-fish limit of 11.24 pounds, 6 pounds out of first. But on the second day, he came up with the second-largest haul of the weekend, 19.13 pounds, to capture his second state title.
“I didn’t think I had a chance after being down 6 pounds after day one,” Schmidt, who won the younger division two seasons ago, is quoted as saying in a press release. “But then I caught a good one on this one spot, then another, and another …”
The Inland Empire Bass Club also had two third-place finishers – Tyler Wilson of Nine Mile Falls (11.93-pounds) in the 11-14 division, and Joey Nania of Liberty Lake (14.72) in 15-18.
Basketball
North Idaho College will honor longtime former men’s coach Rolly Williams by naming the court in Christianson Gym in his honor this coming weekend.
A men’s basketball reunion reception will kick off the dedication events at 6 p.m. Friday at the Coeur d’Alene Eagles Club. Expected to attend are alumni from the 1960s to as recently as 2006. It is open to the public.
The current men’s team will scrimmage an alumni team at 11 a.m. Saturday in Christianson Gym, with the dedication of Rolly Williams Court at 1:30 p.m.
Last spring, the NIC Board of Trustees approved the honor.
Williams served as head men’s basketball coach from 1961-96, compiling a 731-314 record and 25 consecutive winning seasons. He ranks ninth in career wins among all men’s basketball coaches in the National Junior College Athletic Association.
Williams was named Region 18 Coach of the Year three times and led his team to the NJCAA national tournament in 1978 and 1980. During the 1979-80 season, the Cardinals went 30-7 and placed 10th in the NJCAA national tournament.
Williams was inducted into the Idaho Hall of Fame in 1988 and into the NJCAA Hall of Fame in 1993.
The public is welcome to the events. There is no charge.
Info: (208) 769-3348.
College scene
Eastern Washington has named Abby Jensen, a junior midfielder from Sandpoint in soccer, and Fritz Brayton, a junior punter in football, the athletics department’s scholar-athletes of the month for September.
Bensen has scored four goals this season, one off the school record, and has a 3.89 grade-point average in criminal justice.
Brayton, 3.14 in business administration, ranks 36th nationally with a 40.3 average and earned a national honor last month when he averaged 47.7 yards on six punts in one game.
“Ellie Brophy from Gonzaga Prep, senior captain of the Yale women’s golf team, won the Rutgers Invitational last weekend with a 36-hole score of 6-over-par 150 (76-74) in Piscataway, N.J.
Yale placed second in the 18-team field.
“Eric Gunning has been hired at Gonzaga University as an assistant athletic trainer.
He spent the past six years at Eastern Washington University, where he also received his bachelor’s degree.
He received his master’s at Kansas. He is a Central Valley HS graduate.