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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Fast Break

Volleyball

EWU’s Kydd coach of year

Eastern Washington University first-year coach Miles Kydd has been named the Big Sky Conference coach of the year.

Kydd, who led the Eagles to the Big Sky regular-season title, was selected the top coach by his fellow conference coaches.

He joins former Eastern coaches Wade Benson (2002 and 2006) and Pam Parks (1989) as recipients of the award.

Eastern finished 18-11 overall and 12-4 in Big Sky play and lost in the Big Sky title match to Portland State.

Last week Eastern’s Hayley Hills was selected as the league’s most valuable player and teammate Chenoa Coviare was named to the All-Big Sky second team. Honorable mention selections were Alysha Cook, Ashley Hamilton and Mandy Daniels.

Junior Hockey

Chiefs’ ranks thin for the holidays

The holidays are a time for giving and the Spokane Chiefs will do plenty of that.

As many as seven players will be missing from the Chiefs’ roster over the holidays because of commitments to national teams.

USA Hockey today announced Chiefs forwards Drayson Bowman, Mitch Wahl and Tyler Johnson are a part of the 22-player roster for the U.S. National Junior Team.

The squad will participate at the World Junior Championships, in Ottawa, Ontario, Dec. 26-Jan. 5. They will miss at least five Chiefs games.

The Canadian Hockey League announced that goaltender Dustin Tokarski and defenseman Jared Spurgeon are among 38 invited to take part in Canada’s National Junior Selection Camp from Dec. 11-15 in Ottawa. Tokarski and Spurgeon will miss three games during the tryout period and at least five more if they make the Canadian team that plays in the World Juniors.

Stefan Ulmer will play for Team Austria at the 2009 Division I Group B IIHF World Under 20 Championships in Denmark beginning Dec. 15 and will miss three games.

Blake Gal is playing for Team Pacific at the Under-17 World Hockey Challenge Dec. 28-Jan. 4 and will miss five games.

Men’s basketball

Whitworth men ranked 15th

After an impressive 4-0 start, Whitworth is ranked 15th in the first D3hoops.com Top 25.

Whitworth opened the season by winning the Johns Hopkins Blue Jay Invitational, defeating the host school 70-60 in the championship game. Last weekend Whitworth went 2-0 at the Caltech/Occidental Thanksgiving Classic, defeating previously unbeaten Chapman 62-47 along the way.

The Pirates return to Southern California this weekend to compete at the eight-team Lee Fulmer Classic, hosted by the University of Redlands. Whitworth has won this tournament the previous two times the Bucs have participated. Today’s first-round opponent is NAIA Cal State East Bay (1-1).