Idaho standouts win WAC awards
Two Idaho track and field athletes, Jonathan Marler and Allix Lee-Painter, are the 2010 winners of the Western Athletic Conference Stan Bates Awards, the conference’s highest academic honor.
Named for the former WAC commissioner, and Washington State athletic director (1954-70), the award honors a top male and top female scholar-athlete, recognizing their athletic and academic accomplishments. The awards carry $2,000 postgraduate scholarships.
Marler, from Kennewick, graduated Magna Cum Laude in May with a 3.91 cumulative grade-point average in computer science. He was a seven-time All-WAC honoree in the high jump and earned numerous academic awards, including a third-team ESPN The Magazine All-America honor in 2009.
Lee-Painter, from Moscow, Idaho, a two-time ESPN The Magazine second-team Academic All-American, graduated in May with a 3.86 GPA in secondary education and English. She is a five-time WAC champion and three-time conference athlete of the year. She was the first athlete in Idaho and WAC history, and just the third in NCAA history, to sweep the 3,000 steeplechase, 5,000 and 10,000 races at a single conference championship meet.
Basketball
The Spokane Sports 60-plus placed second at the FIMBA Pan-American Maxibasketball Championships held last week at Springfield, Ore. Spokane fell to Brazil 51-43 in the championship game. Spokane’s record was 3-2, losing to Brazil twice and defeating teams from Portland, Chile and Costa Rica.
Team members are Ed Fredenburg, Mike Bourn, Dave Pounds, Dan Steward, Randy Dolven, Terry Nealey, Durand Splater, Jim McClinton and Tedd Nealey.
The Spokane Sports 65-plus team won one game and finished in third place. Team members are Ray Stein, Jim House, Ron Brixey, Darrel Olson, Larry Gunn, Dennis Flynn, Tony Zorich and Jim Dahlstrom.
College scene
Holly Parent, a freshman at Washington State, won the women’s high jump at the Canadian Junior Track & Field Championships in Moncton, New Brunswick, last Sunday.
Parent, from Victoria, British Columbia, who cleared 5-feet, 9 3/4-inches, will now compete at the 13th annual IAAF World Junior Championships July 19-25, also in Moncton.
Parent reached a World Junior Championships qualifying standard, and a personal-best height of 5-11 1/4 at the NCAA West Regional First Round in May in Austin, Texas.
• Basketball players Nate Montgomery and Cassie Pilkinton are Whitworth’s selections to the All-Northwest Conference Scholar- Athlete first team.
The honor recognizes student-athletes who have excelled in the classroom, in athletic competition, and in the community. Each conference faculty athletics representative selected one male and one female winner from its school based on the institution’s own criteria.
Montgomery was the NWC men’s player of the year and chosen to two All-America teams. He is graduating with a 3.6 GPA in engineering-physics and was named to the ESPN The Magazine CoSIDA Academic All-District VIII college division team.
Pilkinton, who started her collegiate career at North Idaho College, was first team All-NWC. She was also selected to the 2010 CoSIDA Academic All-District VIII team. Pilkinton graduates as an elementary education major with a 3.8 GPA. She spent her free time coaching a special needs basketball team for Real Life Ministries.
• Four Idaho golfers were honored as Division I All-American Scholars by the National Golf Coaches Association.
Graduated senior Amanda Jacobs is joined by juniors-to-be Kayla Mortellaro, Annika Karlsson and Frida Nilsson.
To qualify for NGCA All-American Scholar status, a player needs to have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.5 and have competed in at least 50 percent of her team’s tournaments.
• Three Gonzaga University golfers have been honored with national All-America Scholar honors by the Golf coaches Association of America. Senior Derek Cheney and senior-to-be Kyle Huus from the men’s team and junior-to-be Jessica Howe of the women’s squad are the Bulldogs’ honorees.
To be eligible for the All-America Scholar status an individual must be a junior or senior academically, compete in at least two full years at the collegiate level, participate in 70 percent of his team’s competitive rounds or compete in the NCAA Championships, have a stroke-average under 76.0 in Division I and maintain a minimum cumulative grade-point average of 3.2.
• Fifty-four Eastern Washington students were honored on the Big Sky Conference All-Academic team for the spring quarter.
Former area high school students honored include track and field athletes Timothy Armstrong (East Valley), Chad Butorac (Northport), Jordan Curnutt (Mead), David Howard (East Valley), Stephanie Dye (Riverside) and Ashley Stabl (Tekoa).
To qualify for the team, athletes must have a 3.20 cumulative GPA and participated in at least half the team’s competitions.
• Montana track and field athlete Bryan DeFelice (Mead) was also a spring academic All-Big Sky selection.
• Seattle University softball player and recent graduate Katie Antich of Spokane (Gonzaga Prep) was selected to Pacific Coast Softball Conference Commissioner’s Honor Roll. Antich was one of only five student-athletes within the 12-team PCSC to post a 4.0 GPA for the year.