Locally: Spokane’s Israel Alvarez wins silver medal at boxing event
Israel Alvarez of Spokane, who fights out of the Howard Street Gym, claimed the silver medal in the Junior Male 145-pound class at the 2016 Junior Open and Youth National Boxing Championships last weekend in Reno, Nevada.
Alvarez, 15, a sophomore at Lewis and Clark, dropped a 3-0 decision to Joey Spencer of Linden, Michigan, in the welterweight division’s gold medal match. Spencer was the 154-pound champion last year who dropped down a weight class this year.
Alvarez reached the finals with a 41-second TKO over Angel Gomez of Dallas, Texas, in the semifinals. Gomez had his mouth open when he absorbed a six-punch combination from Alvarez and suffered a broken jaw, said Alvarez’s coach, Ray Kerwick. Spencer posted a 3-0 decision in his semifinal.
Alvarez’ next will fight in the National Silver Gloves next month.
Awards
Larry Weir, the radio voice of Eastern Washington University athletics, and John Blanchette, retired columnist for The Spokesman-Review who continues to write for the newspaper as a correspondent, have been honored by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.
Weir, who has called Eagles football and basketball since 1991, collected his second NSSA Sportscaster of the Year for the state of Washington, duplicating an honor he first won in 2015.
Blanchette was named Washington Sportswriter of the Year for the eighth time, but first since finishing off a four-year run in 2009. He also received the NSSA honor in Montana seven times before joining The S-R in the early 1980s.
Bowling
Shelby Snyder had a productive Christmas break from college during the Junior Bowlers Tour stop at Cheney Bowl last Sunday.
Snyder, who bowls on the Wichita State women’s development team, started the day with an 873 series, highlighted by a 288 game, during the first round of qualifying to hold first going into the match-play portion of qualifying.
She came out of match play in second, edged for the top spot by Anthony Huck, who put together a 4-0 record. But no matter. In the five-person roll-offs, Snyder defeated the No. 3 qualifier, John Hilden, to set up a championship-match meeting with Huck. Snyder took control early and won 217-183. She finished the day with 207 average. Huck averaged 201.
Hilden finished third; Jake VanStralen, who had high boys game, a 257, was fourth; and Wyatt Rosenau was fifth. Rosenau had charged from 12th with three wins and an 837 series to earn the fourth spot going into the roll-offs.
The next JBT will be at Bumpers on Jan 31.
Golf
Three area professionals were among the 14 selected when the Pacific Northwest Section PGA of America named its 2015 Special Award Winners. They will be honored March 20 at the Tualatin (Oregon) Country Club.
Kathleen Brown of Esmeralda Golf Club in Spokane will receive the 2015 Perry Williams Award. In addition to serving the PNW PGA Rules Committee since 2013, she was the PGA Rules Official on both the Rosauers Open Invitational and the PNW PGA Professional Championship.
Andy Mackimmie of the Coeur d’ Alene Resort was named the 2015 Horton Smith Award winner. The section’s chairman of education the past five years, Mackimmie coordinated the popular Sweet Sixteen Education Seminars.
Chris Runyan of Prairie Falls Golf Club in Post Falls will be given the 2015 Patriot Award. Runyan spearheads a tournament that raised more than $50,000 for charities supporting veterans, and also works with injured local veterans to bring golf back into their life.
Track and field
Two individuals with area ties are among three inducted into the Washington State Track and Field Coaches Association Hall of Fame during the group’s 18th annual convention on Saturday in Everett.
The 2016 class includes Cheryl Schauble, a track standout at Washington State and Pullman High School who has guided Kennewick’s Kamiakin Braves to the past four State 3A championships, and the late Tuck Gionet, a Mead High School graduate and longtime boys and girls coach at Snohomish High who died last year.
The third member is Gwen Robertson, head coach of the Issaquah boys and girls track teams from 1987-2014. She was inducted into the state Cross County Coaches Hall of Fame in 2013.
Triathlon
Sister Madonna Buder of Spokane is one of only 13 Americans and 29 worldwide to be named an All World Athlete champion for their age group by Ironman Triathlon. Sister Madonna competes in the female 85-and-over age group.
To reach AWA status, Ironman triathletes must finish in the top 10 percent of their age group in races throughout the year. In 2015, there were more than 23,500 competitors worldwide.
Miscellany
Ken Halpin, deputy athletic director at Eastern Washington University, has been selected as one of 23 administrators nationally to participate in the NCAA’s Pathway Program for aspiring directors of athletics.
The year-long program is designed to give the participants an insight into every facet of an athletics department and the tools to be an effective athletics director.
At EWU, Halpin provides oversight over external operations and oversees the men’s and women’s tennis programs. Prior to this role, he was director of corporate partnerships for the athletic department. He was also business manager at Community Colleges of Spokane.
Halpin has degrees from Willamette, where he was All-Northwest Conference in football and baseball; Gonzaga, where he currently teaches as an adjunct professor in the sport management program; and Washington State, where he earned a Ph.D. in higher education administration.