Covington, Hernandez combine for JBT triumph
Jesse Covington finished the way he started and combined with his adult partner, Anthony Hernandez, to win the Junior Bowlers Tour’s season-opening alumni tournament last Sunday at Valley Bowl.
Covington put together an 849 series to come out of the first four games of qualifying with the top spot and he and Hernandez held onto it through a competitive four games of match play – then watched as four rival teams set about deciding their opponent in the finals.
Dylan Young and adult partner Brian Long, who had qualified No. 2, wound up in the finals, but lost 414-364 to Covington and Hernandez.
Tyler Sumpter and Jason Ramelow were third, Anthony Huck and Chad Dudley fourth and Steven Talbot and Wade Rees, who had surged from ninth to earn the No. 4 spot in the match-play finals, finished fifth.
Covington had the day’s top game for the JBT boys, a 237, while Shelby Snyder led the girls with a 215.
The next JBT is Oct. 6 at River City Lanes in Post Falls.
College scene
Alexis Olgard, a Mead graduate and senior captain of the Southern California women’s volleyball team, has played a major role as the Trojans have opened the season 6-0 and climbed to the No. 1 national ranking,
Olgard had 14 kills and hit better than .455 in two matches as USC won the Marquette Challenge last weekend. The performance earned her selection to the all-tournament team. She is averaging 1.58 kills and .84 blocks per set.
• Sofia Marikis, a Western Washington freshman from Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls), placed fourth to augment the first-place finish of a freshman teammate and lead the Vikings women to the team title in the Central Washington Cross Country Invitational last weekend in Yakima. Marikis covered the 4,000-meter course in 16 minutes, 26 seconds.
Miscellany
The Red Lion Cup, a collegiate competition inaugurated in 2012 in Spokane to help two regional NAIA conferences maximize their travel budgets, has been nominated for a 2013 Sports Travel Award by Sports Travel Magazine.
Teams from the Frontier and Cascade conferences were invited to Spokane over five weekends between August and November to compete in volleyball, and men’s and women’s cross country, soccer and basketball. Points were awarded for wins and the Frontier Conference claimed the first Red Lion Cup 42-18.
There are four sections with 10 categories of five events each nominated for Sports Travel Awards. The Red Lion Cup is in the Collegiate Sporting Events section under best multisport or multiple-discipline event with four events that were held in 2013, the College National Finals Rodeo, NCAA Division I Men’s Gymnastics Championships, NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships and the NJCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.