Kardong honored with lifetime achievement award for running

Don Kardong of Spokane, a former Olympian and founder of Spokane’s Lilac Bloomsday Run, was honored by the Road Race Management Race Directors association with the group’s first MarathonFoto/Road Race Management Lifetime Achievement Award as a highlight of its 30th anniversary meeting Nov. 8 in Hollywood, Fla.

 The association, in its release announcing Kardong’s selection, said it received “scores of nominations … that read like a Who’s Who of running.” A 10-member committee boiled the list down to four finalists. In addition to Kardong, they were   Fred Lebow, former New York Marathon director; Dave McGillivray, director of the Boston Marathon and many other events; and Gar Williams, former Road Runners Club of America and D.C. Road Runners president who founded the Cherry Blossom Race and reinvigorated the RRCA.

 “We were seeking to honor a significant ‘game changer’ – a person who really made a difference,” said Phil Stewart, editor and publisher of Road Race Management. “Don Kardong is a most worthy winner of Road Race Management’s Lifetime Achievement Award because he has shaped every corner of the world of organized distance running.”

 Kardong, 64, who earned degrees from Stanford (1971) and Washington (1974), finished fourth in the men’s marathon at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and won the Honolulu Marathon in 1978. In between, he founded the Lilac Bloomsday Run in 1977 and currently serves as its race director.

College scene

Isaac Griffith, a Western Washington sophomore from Lewis and Clark, was named to the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association West Region all-star team after he placed 20th in the NCAA Division II West Regional meet last weekend at Plantes Ferry Park in Spokane Valley.

• Whitworth landed seven players on the All-Northwest Conference men’s soccer team, three of them seniors on the first team.

  Balin Larson and Andrew Flint, both defenders, repeated on the first team while midfielder Sam Selisch was elevated to the first team after earning honorable mention in 2012.

  Sam Engle was named to the second team, while Matt Bray from Ferris, David Starkovich and Spencer Wolfe received honorable mention. Bray also received honorable mention in 2012.

  • Tiara Pajimola from Shadle Park, a Whitworth sophomore forward, has been named to the 2013 All-Northwest Conference women’s soccer first team, while three of her teammates received honorable mention.

 Defenders Jami Hegg (Mead) and Hannah Langbehn and goalie Andrea Stump earned honorable mention.

• Jenni White, a junior point guard on the Western Washington women’s basketball team from East Valley, scored a career-high 18 points, dished out five assists and had three steals to lead the Vikings in a 77-68 overtime loss to Humboldt State in final-day action at the West Region Crossover Classic in Fresno, Calif., last weekend.

• DJ Tripoli, a senior running back at Whitworth, has been named to the 2013 CoSIDA Academic All-District VIII football team for Division III. He carried a 3.93 GPA into the fall semester while majoring in kinesiology.

Tripoli is eligible for selection to the 2013-14 Division III Academic All-America team.

• Matt Christiansen, a senior tight end at Central Washington from East Valley, was named to the 2013  Great Northwest Athletic Conference academic all-conference team in football. Christiansen has a double major in communication and law & justice with a 3.46 grade-point average.

• Heather Johnson , a Gonzaga sophomore midfielder, has been named to the 2013 West Coast Conference women’s soccer All-Academic team with a 3.69 grade-point average in business.

Senior Emily Eckmann, 3.63 in human physiology; junior Cricket Harber, 3.63, business; junior Tori Lee, 3.88, economics and math; and junior Katey Pennington, 3.72, biology, all received honorable mention.

Eckmann earned honorable mention for a second straight year after being a first-team selection in 2011. It was the second straight honorable mention honor for both Lee and Pennington, and Harbor’s first WCC academic honor.

• Willie Milam, a senior on the Gonzaga men’s team, and Alison Fraher, a junior on the women’s, have been named to 2013 West Coast Conference men’s and women’s cross country All-Academic teams.

Milam has a 3.78 GPA in business. Fraher has a 3.77 GPA in mechanical engineering.

Gonzaga also had four earn honorable mention – junior Matthew Crichlow, 3.54, English, and sophomore Danny Lunder, 3.53, business, on the men’s team, and junior Krista Beyer, 3.74, civil engineering, and senior Shelly Davis, 3.36, psychology, on the women’s.

Hockey

Derek Ryan, a former Spokane Chiefs player and Shadle Park High graduate, represented the United States last weekend in the Deutschland Cup in Munich, Germany.

Ryan, who has 15 goals and 36 points with VSV EC in Austria in his third professional season overseas, was one of 21 players on the U.S. team that went 2-1 in the four-team tournament and won the Cup. Ryan played in all three games, a 4-3 shootout loss to Slovakia, a 5-4 win over Switzerland and a 7-4 victory over Germany in what amounted to the championship game. Ryan didn’t score but did win 44 percent of the face-offs he took.

Ryan appeared in 216 games as a Chief from 2004-07, compiling 67 goals and 167 points. He was the WHL Western Conference Rookie of the Year in 2004-05. After his junior career, Ryan competed with the University of Alberta, where he played four seasons while earning a degree.

• Chris Moulton , director of player personnel for the Spokane Chiefs, and his wife, Shelley, were recently named Volunteers of the Year at the 2013 Community & Business Excellence Awards in their hometown of Fernie, B.C.

The Moultons founded and operate a new charity, Fernie Friends for Friends, dedicated to raising funds for cancer patients and their families living in the community.

Moulton estimated the charity, in its second year, with the help of a silent auction of game-worn pink jerseys by the Fernie Ghostriders Junior B hockey team, will raise more than $6,000. The funds will be directed to a local family faced with extensive medical costs, he said.

Soccer

Maegan O’Neill, a member of the Spokane Soccer Club Shadow girls 96-A team and a junior at Ferris, was selected for the Region IV 1997 team that will participate in the 2013 Olympic Development Program Thanksgiving Interregional Nov. 24-29 in Boca Raton, Fla. She is the only player from Washington on the 14-state Region IV team.

The six-day event will feature nearly 300 of the nations top players selected from U.S. Youth Soccer State Association and regional-level evaluations.