Local features: Team St. Luke’s has 4 in ParaPanAm Games
Four Team St. Luke’s athletes, Chelsea McClammer, 17; Amberlynn Weber, 17; Bob Hunt, 21; and Kristen Messer, 24, are in Guadalajara, Mexico, to compete in the 2011 ParaPanAm Games that run today through next Sunday.
The quartet, who will represent the United States in track, compete in the same venues and live in the same village as other U.S. athletes, who are in Mexico competing in the 2011 PanAm Games.
Team St. Luke’s coach Teresa Skinner noted the Spokane team has more athletes on the U.S. ParaPanAm team than any other program in the country.
Baseball
Jacob Hochberg, a left-handed pitcher at Central Valley, will play for Concordia University next fall, the Portland school announced.
Basketball
Erin Legel, a point guard who helped Coeur d’Alene High to an Idaho State 5A championship and runner-up finish the last two seasons, has signed a letter of intent with University of Great Falls, the Montana school announced.
Legel, who made contribtions both as a starter and key sixth player, averaged 12.2 points, 5.8 assists, 2.4 steals and 4.3 rebounds for the Vikings as a junior last winter. She plays select ball for the Spokane Stars.
College scene
Rhianna Grossman, a Carroll College sophomore from Lake City, was named Female Runner of the Year by the Frontier Conference after winning her first league cross country championship.
Sophie Bush, a Lewis-Clark State freshman from Newport who finished second, was named to the women’s all-conference team.
Grossman, runner-up a year ago, ran the 5-kilometer course in 18 minutes, 33.7 seconds, nearly 20 seconds ahead of Bush (18:53.0), to lead the 10th-ranked Saints to their second straight Frontier title.
• Jeff Minnerly, a junior safety at Eastern Washington from Ferris, is a repeat selection on the Capitol One Academic All-District VIII University Division team for football.
Minnerly has a 3.83 grade-point average as a finance major.
• Meg Ryan, a Central Washington senior outside hitter from Mead, was selected for a third straight year to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference All-Academic team for volleyball. She has a 3.47 GPA in business.
Laurie Yearout, a junior at Western Washington from Lewis and Clark, repeated on the team with a 3.52 GPA in English-literature.
• Morgan Manchester, a Gonzaga junior from East Valley, and Zags senior Katie Spangenberg from Pullman, received honorable mention on the West Coast Conference All-Academic team in women’s soccer.
Manchester has a 3.55 GPA in biology and Spangenberg a 3.85 in finance.
• Abby Goss, a Puget Sound senior from University, is a College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-District VIII second-team selection in women’s soccer with a 3.57 GPA in exercise science.
Golf
Kristen Hansen, a two-time state qualifier for Mead, has signed a letter of intent with Western Washington, her family announced.
Hansen, a first-team All-Greater Spokane League selection as a junior, placed 13th in the State 4A tournament as a sophomore and 22nd as a junior.
• University of Idaho has signed two players to letters of intent, Kristin Strankman of Richland and Kassidy Long-Goheen from Phoenix, women’s coach Lisa Johnson announced.
Strankman, a multi-sport athlete, is a three-time all-conference selection and the Big Nine MVP as a junior. She was runner-up at the PNGA Junior Girls Championship and won the Banner Bank tournament in 2011. Long-Goheen is a three-time team MVP who was ninth at the Arizona 5A state tournament as a junior.
Hockey
The Spokane police and sheriff’s departments will play a benefit exhibition game Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Arena prior to the Spokane Chiefs-Regina Pats game. The game will benefit the Behind the Badge Foundation, which helps law enforcement personnel who are injured or killed in action or their families.
Ticket information: 535-PUCK.
Volleyball
Sarah Batterton of Northwest Christian, the Bi-County League Most Valuable Player as a junior in 2010 who has a 4.0 GPA, has accepted a full-ride scholarship to Tennessee-Chattanooga, NWC announced.
The 6-foot-2 middle blocker has been the kill and block leader for NWC since her sophomore season, with 186 kills this season. She was Washington 2B All-State honorable mention as a junior.
• Kate Sommer, a defensive specialist from Pacific Palisades, Calif., has signed a national letter of intent with Washington State, Cougars coach Jen Greeny announced.
The 5-4 senior at Lighthouse Christian Academy is a three-time all-conference selection and its most valuable player as a junior. She was named one of the top liberos on prepvolleyball.com’s Senior Aces list of 150 players from around the country.
• Eastern Washington has added a fifth player 6-feet or taller with the signing of Allison Doerpinghaus, a 6-4 middle blocker from Palo Alto, Calif., coach Miles Kydd announced.
Doerpinghaus is a three-year varsity letterwinner who was her team’s leading blocker as a junior and senior and a first-team all-conference selection as a junior.
Miscellany
Don Kardong, founder and director of the Lilac Bloomsday Run, has been named the MarathonFoto/Road Race Management Race Director of the Year for 2011.
Kardong was honored at the Road Race Management Race Directors’ meeting in Hollywood, Fla., Nov. 10.
Road Race Management president Phil Stewart noted that while the previous 24 winners made their mark in the long distance running community as race directors, Kardong “is a little bit different – he cut his teeth in the sport as a member of the 1976 U.S. Olympic team in the marathon, finishing fourth (three seconds out of third) in Montreal.”
Kardong has headed up Bloomsday since the record-setting road-race’s inception in 1977.