Banquet honors athletes

A record number of athletes were nominated for awards at the 47th annual North Idaho Sports Banquet.

The recipients were honored Saturday night. The annual banquet honors the top coaches, teams and athletes in the region.

Here are the winners:

In the college categories, North Idaho College women’s basketball coach Chris Carlson, whose team captured the Region 18 championship and advanced to the NJCAA tournament, was named coach of the year; the NIC men’s basketball team, which captured the Scenic West Athletic Conference title, was named team of the year; University of Idaho basketball player Mac Hopson was named male athlete of the year; and Idaho cross country and track runner Allix Lee-Painter was named female athlete of the year.

In the high school categories, Coeur d’Alene girls basketball coach Dale Poffenroth was a repeat winner as coach of the year of a female team after his team defended its State 5A championship and Orofino baseball coach Bo Cummings was the male coach of the year.

The CdA girls basketball team was a repeat female team of the year winner and the Lewiston and Genesee boys basketball teams were co-male teams of the year.

Kama Griffitts of CdA and Bailey Hewitt of Clark Fork shared the female athlete of the year honor and Beau Dahmen of Genesee was named the male athlete of the year.

Here are the other individual athletes for the various sports, beginning with the boys:

In football, Kyler Nilsson of Lewiston and Jared Heston of Lake City were co-players of the year in 5A/4A, and Ammon Johnston of Timberlake and David Siegler of Prairie were co-players of the year in 3A/1A.

In cross country, the honor went to C.J. Helbling of Lake City.

In boys basketball, Jared Heitzman of Lewiston was player of the year in 5A/4A and Dahmen was the 3A/1A pick.

In wrestling, Braden Mowry of CdA and Luke Lane of Kamiah shared the honor. Mason Shaw of LC was a repeat winner in swimming. Zach Clanton of LC and J.J. Turbin of CdA shared the honor in baseball, and Chris Williams of Moscow was a repeat winner in golf. John Coyle of LC (5A/4A track), Nick Puckett of Timberlake and Jonathan Dalton of Deary (3A/1A track), Daniel Anderson of Sandpoint (soccer), Kyle Fournier of Grangeville (tennis) also were honored.

For the girls, Griffitts and Katie Baker of LC were co-players of the year in 5A/4A basketball and Annie Kane of Lapwai was honored in 3A/1A basketball.

Hewitt was a double winner in 3A/1A track and soccer.

Genna Dodge of Post Falls and Kinsey Gomez of CdA were repeat winners in golf and cross country respectively. Other winners were Piper Wahlin of Sandpoint (5A/4A volleyball), Michelle Guidry of St. Maries (3A/1A volleyball), Erica Anderson of Moscow and Kjirsten Magnuson of LC (swimming), Jessica Ulrich of Lewiston (softball), Camille Reynolds of Lakeland (5A/4A track) and Shaina Gustafson and Chelsea Macumber of Clark Fork (tennis).