Fast Break

Whits win all-sports trophy

Whitworth University pulled away from the University of Puget Sound to win the 2008-09 Northwest Conference McIlroy-Lewis All-Sports trophy. The Pirates, leaders by seven points after the winter season, won their second straight trophy by a final margin of 37 points. It is the third time Whitworth has won the trophy.

Whitworth won its first women’s tennis championship since 1997 and tied for it’s first-ever women’s golf title to accumulate 101 points in the spring and 250 total points in the trophy chase. The Pirates also claimed a pair of runner-up finishes in men’s and women’s track and field. Whitworth finished the 2008-09 year with five NWC titles.

Softball

Vlahovich top pitcher

Former University High School standout Linse Vlahovich, a senior at Central Washington University, has been named the 2009 Great Northwest Athletic Conference pitcher of the year.

Vlahovich finished the 2009 season with a 23-8 record, 2.16 earned-run average, and a school-record 219 strikeouts. She was credited with more than two-thirds of the Wildcats’ 33 wins, adding three saves, while tying or setting 14 single-season pitching records. In conference games, she had a 19-4 record and 1.97 earned-run average while logging 1561/3 innings.

Wildcats head coach Gary Frederick was selected as co-coach of the year, sharing the honor with Anthony Stone of Montana State Billings.

Central finished with a 33-20 record, an 111/2-game improvement over the program’s 17-27 mark a year ago. The Wildcats just missed their first berth in the NCAA Division II tournament.

Football

UI assistant arrested

The Ada County Sheriff Department says a University of Idaho assistant football coach has been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.

Mark Criner, 42, The Vandals’ defensive coordinator, was booked into the Ada County Jail around 2 a.m. before posting bond. Police say he was driving erratically and pulled over in Meridian.

University officials responded Monday by placing Criner on indefinite administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of his case and the school’s own internal investigation.

Criner was hired as defensive coordinator for the Vandals in 2007. He graduated from Boise State University in 1990 and played for the Broncos.

His father, Jim Criner, was the head football coach at Boise State during the late 1970s and early 1980s.