Locally: Hey, blue – you’re honored
Five members of the Spokane Softball Umpires Association – Dave Berghammer, Marty Boles, Gary Broadbent, Paul Clary and Carl Durr – received Washington Officials Association Meritorious Service Awards at the 2014 WOA conference in Yakima.
They bring to 25 the number of SSUA members who have received the award, which honors those who are considered among the top officials in their association and have been a registered WOA official for at least 15 years.
College scene
Two Western Washington sophomores from Spokane are among 43 Vikings who were recipients of 2013-14 Division II Athletics Directors Association Academic Achievement Awards.
Honored for a second straight year were Mark Seely from Central Valley, a men’s track and field athlete who has a 3.59 GPA in plastics engineering technology, and Aleisha Hathaway, a women’s basketball player from Shadle Park with a 3.55 GPA in kinesiology.
• Kali Klotz-Brooks, a junior from Cheney on the women’s team, and Isaac Griffith, a junior from Lewis and Clark, and Logan Giese, a redshirt freshman from Central Valley, on the men’s team, are among the veteran returners on Western Washington cross country teams looking to return to the NCAA Division II nationals. Griffith, All-West Region last year, placed 125th at nationals.
• Reigning Great Northwest Athletic Conference Player of the Year Kristen Hansen, a junior from Mead, leads a strong cast of returning players to a Western Washington women’s golf team looking for a fifth straight GNAC championship. Hansen led the Vikings with a 78.6 stroke average last season.
• Gonzaga has added a men’s golf player from England who is transferring in from North Idaho College.
Angus “Gus” Montgomery, of Middlesbrough, England, will join Gonzaga’s golf team this fall, coach Robert Gray said in a news release.
Montgomery, who will be a sophomore, tied for 12th at the 2014 National Junior College Athletic Association Division I Golf Championship in Burlington, Iowa. His score was eight strokes off the lead.
Letters of intent
Washington State signed three athletes from Washington for its track and field and cross country programs this school year.
Kiana Davis, a hepathlete from Longview who was the 2013 Washington 3A champion in the high jump (5 feet, 6 inches), runner-up in the triple jump (38-5½) and third in the long jump (17-10¼), will transfer from Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California, and join the women’s team.
Brock Eager, a hammer thrower from Renton, who was the 2014 Washington 4A champion after placing second as a junior, and Michael Williams, a distance runner from Richland, who placed fourth in the State 4A cross country championships and third in the 3,200 (9 minutes, 8.28 seconds) in track last spring, will join the men’s team.