NSSA honors Weir, Morris

The Washington and Idaho sportscasters of the year reside in the Inland Northwest.

Larry Weir, the radio play-by-play voice of Eastern Washington University since 1991, was selected by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association as the 2014 Sportscaster of the Year for the state of Washington.

Tom Morris, the main voice of University of Idaho football and basketball since 2005, was named the Idaho Sportscaster of the Year.

It is the first honor for Weir, who has been a finalist before, but the fourth for Morris, who previously won in 1987, ’91 and 2002. One of the Washington finalists was Mike Boyle, the radio voice of Spokane Chiefs hockey and Spokane Indians baseball.

Dave Boling, a former writer for The Spokesman-Review now with the Tacoma News Tribune, was selected the Washington Sportswriter of the Year for the first time. One of the finalists was retired Spokesman-Review columnist John Blanchette, a seven-time winner, who continues to write for the S-R as a correspondent.

Weir has broadcast 285 of 286 EWU football games from 1991-2014. The only one he missed was a 2005 playoff game because he was calling EWU basketball in Alaska. He has broadcast nearly 600 basketball games.

“This is a great and well-deserved honor for Larry,” said Eastern athletic director Bill Chaves. “He has been the voice of Eagle athletics for nearly a quarter century, and for many of our fans, parents and student-athletes, he is the link to them and Eastern Washington University.”

Weir is the third area broadcaster to win the award. The late Frank Herron, the radio voice of Washington State football and basketball in the 1950s and early 1960s, won in 1959, and Bud Nameck of KXLY, the current Cougars radio voice, won in 1994 and 2008. The man he succeeded in the WSU booth, Bob Robertson, won the award 12 times.

Morris’ predecessor at Idaho, the late Bob Curtis, was a 33-time winner.

Baseball

Four former Spokane Indians were honored by the parent Texas Rangers as organizational minor league players of the year, three of whom were teammates in 2014 while dividing their seasons between Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Frisco, Texas.

Joey Gallo, 20, an Indian in 2012, was named the Rangers’ Minor League Player of the Year after he hit 42 home runs, the second most in the minors, at High-A Myrtle Beach and AA Frisco.

Alex Gonzalez, who started the 2013 season in Spokane, was named Minor League Pitcher of the Year. He went 12-6 at Myrtle Beach and Frisco with 2.66 earned-run average.

Hanser Alberto, an Indian in 2011, who had just 11 errors at shortstop in 120 games at Myrtle Beach and Frisco, was named Defender of the Year.

Phil Klein, also a 2011 Indian, was the Reliever of the Year. He pitched his way into the Rangers’ bullpen by the end of the season after allowing only three earned runs in 51 2/3 innings over 33 appearances at Frisco and Round Rock, Texas, in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League.

Bowling

Toby Mertens cooled off Jake Richer to win the Junior Bowlers Tour stop at Valley Bowl last Sunday.

Mertens, who managed to figure out lanes that were producing a little tougher shot than the bowlers usually face, took over the top qualifying position from Vanessa Vanderweide, who led after the first four-game block, going into the five-person roll-offs.

Richer, in just his second JBT, qualified fourth and won three matches to get into the championship, but couldn’t get past Mertens, who won a tight final 213-194.

Vanderweide finished third, Casey Schierholz was fourth and Noah Torres fifth.

The next JBT will be next Sunday at Cheney Bowl.

College scene

Ronnie Hamlin, a senior twice over at Eastern Washington, turned his sixth year into a second-straight selection to the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Athletic Director’s Association Academic All-Star team.

The linebacker from Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington, granted a sixth year of eligibility after having two seasons wiped out by knee injuries, has a 3.54 grade-point average as a construction management and mechanical engineering major.

The Eagles’ record-holder in tackles with 473, capped by a career-high 16 in an FCS quarterfinal loss to Illinois State for 110 in 2014, also repeated as an All-American on the field.

• Melissa Williams, a senior women’s basketball player, and Vernon Adams, a redshirt junior in football, have been selected the Eastern Washington athletics department January Scholar-Athletes of the Month.

Williams, from Camas, Washington, with a 3.76 GPA in biology, helped the Eagles to a 4-2 record in December, averaging 9.2 points and 9.5 rebounds per game. She earned MVP honors at the Gator Holiday Classic with a pair of double-doubles that propelled Eastern to the tournament title over host Florida.

Adams, from Pasadena, California, with a 3.00 GPA as a recreation management major, was runner-up for the second straight season for the Walter Payton Award that goes to the top player in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision and was named to four All-America teams after leading the Eagles into the playoff quarterfinals.

•Eastern Washington student-athletes had a collective 3.25 GPA in the fall quarter of 2014, including 28 with a perfect 4.0. Of 315 student-athletes, 144 had a GPA of 3.5 or higher. Women’s soccer had the highest team GPA, 3.66.

The cumulative GPA of all of EWU’s student-athletes is 3.30.

Letters of intent

Lewis-Clark State cross country and track - Brady McKay of Clarkston, a senior at Asotin and two-time State 1B/2B qualifier; and Natalie Herring of Timberlake, a three-time Idaho 3A state top-10 finisher.