Eastern gives Earlywine time

Kirk Earlywine will get more time to work on the enormous rebuilding task he inherited three years ago when he signed on as Eastern Washington University’s head men’s basketball coach.

EWU athletic director Bill Chaves officially announced Tuesday morning that the 45-year-old Earlywine has received a contract extension and will coach the Eagles for a fourth season next winter.

In a statement released by the school, Earlywine said he was pleased to get the chance to continue the rebuilding process.

“From Day One, I knew that this would be a long and difficult process,” he added. “However, with the young players who stepped forward this year, along with our redshirts and our incoming recruiting class, I feel that we are very close to turning the corner.”

Earlywine is 32-58 overall and 17-31 in the Big Sky Conference at Eastern, which is coming off a 9-21 season in which they finished 5-11 in the Big Sky and failed to qualify for the conference tournament.

The Eagles, who had three freshmen starting in the backcourt for most of the season, lost 10 games by six points or less and recorded a home sweep of Montana State and Montana in the next-to-last weekend of the regular season.

Steve Bergum

Bjorklund lands on SEC first team

Women’s basketball: Tennessee junior Angie Bjorklund (University High) was a unanimous choice for the All-Southeastern Conference first team plus the Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

Bjorklund, who was also the Freshman of the Year two seasons ago, leads the fourth-ranked Lady Volunteers in scoring at 14.3 points a game and is third on the career 3-point list with 215. She has 1,076 career points and her 85 3-pointers this year are second for a single season, 18 behind the leader.

The SEC champions have a bye in the first round of the conference tournament, which begins Thursday.

Dave Trimmer

Johnson named player of month

Hockey: Spokane Chiefs forward Tyler Johnson, a Central Valley graduate, was named the Western Hockey League Player of the Month for February.

Johnson scored 24 points, with 10 goals, giving him 63 points (31 goals, 32 assists) this season. The Chiefs went 11-2 in February.

Chiefs goalie James Reid was the November winner.

The Chiefs play three games on the road this week and finish the regular season with four games next week, including three at the Arena.

Dave Trimmer