Mead ties for title

The Mead Panthers won the first nine matches and cruised to a 58-3 Greater Spokane League wrestling victory over the Lewis and Clark Tigers (2-8) Friday night at Mead.

With the win, the Panthers tied the University Titans atop the final GSL standings with 9-1 records.

LC’s lone win came at 189 pounds when Peter VanVoorhis had a takedown at the buzzer to win 8-7.

Mead had a late victory of its own when Joe Regalado got a reverse to win at 171.

College wrestling

Labette Community College sophomore 285-pounder Ben Hohensee earned a 3-0 decision in the final match of the night to clinch a 21-16 victory for the Labette Cardinals over the North Idaho College Cardinals on the first night of the two-day Northwest Wyoming Duals in Powell, Wyo.

The loss was the first of the season for North Idaho, which dropped to 12-1.

Celic Bell earned a pin for NIC at 174 pounds.

Softball

Five-time defending Northwest Conference champion Linfield is a strong favorite to win its sixth in a row in voting by the league coaches.

Linfield picked up six first-place votes on its way to 68 points, outlasting Pacific, which got two first-place votes and 57 points. Whitworth was picked for fifth.

Four of the eight NWC schools will feature new head coaches this season, including Joe Abraham at Whitworth, which was 16-21 last spring.

Baseball

Defending champion Linfield is a slight favorite to win the Northwest Conference title again, edging George Fox and Pacific Lutheran in a poll of NWC coaches. Whitworth was chosen for fourth.

Track and field

University of Idaho’s Matthew Wauters won the men’s weight throw with an NCAA provisional qualifying distance of 65 feet, 113/4 inches to highlight the first day of the two-day Cougar Indoor Invitational team-scoring meet at WSU’s Indoor Practice Facility in Pullman.

Utah State’s John Strang is the men’s heptathlon leader and was an NCAA provisional qualifier in the high jump with a leap of 7-1/4.

Gymnastics

Lakeside’s Anande Egland swept all four individual events to win the all-around title, but Mead captured the team race in a Greater Spokane League meet at Central Valley.