Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Locally: Gonzaga women’s cross country/track and field coach Patty Ley steps down

From staff and wire reports

Patty Ley, Gonzaga women’s cross country and track and field head coach for just less than five years, is resigning next month to spend more time with her family.

Ley was named the Zags’ first full-time assistant coach in those sports in March 2011 before being named head coach in August 2013.

In 2015, she led the GU women to their first West Coast Conference cross country title since 1995 and to the school’s first appearance in the NCAA Championships and was named WCC Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year. GU finished the season ranked No. 27 in the country after finishing 25th at the NCAA Championships.

“It has been a wonderful seven years at Gonzaga,” said Ley, who has two children, a daughter and a son. “My hope is to re-enter teaching and coaching at the high school level.”

A seven-time Washington State AA champion at Gig Harbor who battled injuries during a collegiate career that included stints at Oregon, Washington State and Pacific Lutheran, from which she graduated in 1993, Ley came to Gonzaga after a year at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia.

Considered one of the top developmental distance coaches in the country, she was head coach of the Team USA junior women’s team at the World Cross Country Championships in 2010.

Coaches

Jason Dudley and Adam Thackery, who have been on the Washington State athletic staff for two years, have been promoted to positions to head up the strength and conditioning program, director of athletics Patrick Chun announced.

Dudley, who has spent the last two years as men’s basketball strength and conditioning coach, was named director of strength and conditioning. He will be responsible for the management, coordination, and supervision of all aspects of the strength and conditioning complex.

Thackery was elevated to assistant director of strength and conditioning after spending the previous two years as a strength and conditioning specialist working with the baseball, soccer and track and field programs.

Kelly Graves was the odd man out in a three-man field when the 2018 Oregon Sports Awards named its Slats Gill Sportsperson of the Year last week.

Rob Conner, University of Portland men’s cross country coach who guided the Pilots to second in the NCAA Championships, and Portland Thorns coach Mark Parsons, whose team won the 2017 National Women’s Soccer League title, were named co-winners.

Graves, the former Gonzaga women’s basketball coach, led Oregon to the NCAA Tournament Spokane Regional final in his fourth season with the Ducks.

College scene

Whitworth track and field and cross country, already the programs with the most Academic All-Americans in school history, added three more to their list this spring.

Kayla Leland, Marissa Mount and Andrew Bloom turned first-team, all-district honors into their first Academic All-America selections, being named to third-team spots on 2017-18 Google Cloud Division III Academic All-America Track & Field/Cross Country teams selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

Of the 47 academic All-Americans in Whitworth’s history, 21 have been from track and field and/or cross country.

Leland, a senior distance runner from Gonzaga Prep, was an All-American in three sports in 2017-18 (cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field). The health science and Spanish double major with a 3.94 GPA will attend graduate school at Washington State this fall.

Mount, a junior distance runner from San Jose, California, with a 4.0 GPA as an accounting and finance double major, earned NCAA Division III All-America honors in the steeplechase at the outdoor championships this spring.

Bloom, a graduate student from Stanwood, Washington, is a three-time All-American in the javelin that includes the 2016 NCAA Division III championship. He graduated in May of 2017 with a 3.82 GPA and is enrolled in Whitworth’s M.Ed. program in administrative leadership where he has a 4.0 GPA.

Washington State juniors Kyler Little from Coeur d’Alene and Chandler Teigen from Anatone, Washington, have been named to 2017-18 Google Cloud Division I Academic All-America Men’s Track/Cross Country national teams.

Little, a Lake City graduate majoring in mathematics, was named to the second team with a 4.0 GPA. He was sixth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Pac-12 Championships.

Teigen, who has a 3.96 GPA in biological systems engineering, was named to the third team. He earned All-Pac 12 second-team and All-West Region honors in cross country and was 11th in the 1,500 in the Pac-12, eighth in the NCAA West Region quarterfinals and 24th in the NCAA Championships.

They bring to five the number of WSU male track and field student-athletes named to one of the three national academic teams and 33 in all sports.

Golf

Hayden Gamache of Spokane, a member of Gonzaga Prep’s State 4A championship boys team, is the second alternate to the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship following sectional qualifying last week at The Club at Rock Creek in Coeur d’Alene.

Gamache shot 37-36 for a 1-over 73 to tie for second behind Chandler McDowell of Springbrook, Alberta, who was the only one in the 40-player field to break par with a 1-under 71. That earned him medalist honors and the lone qualifying spot to the Junior Amateur July 16-21 in Springfield, New Jersey.

Hockey

Drayson Bowman, a member of Spokane’s 2008 Memorial Cup championship team during four years with the Chiefs, was a key member of the Colorado Eagles who won the Kelly Cup last weekend and the playoff championship of the East Coast Hockey League.

A third-round NHL draft choice of the Carolina Hurricanes in 2007, Bowman returned to the U.S. this season after spending the previous two playing professionally in Germany. The left winger had five goals and six assists in 20 playoff games foe Colorado after collecting 20 goals and 35 assists in 65 regular-season ECHL games.

The 2017-18 season was special in another more personal way for Bowman, too. For the first time in their careers, since cutting their hockey teeth on the family’s small, outdoor rink in the Denver area, Drayson, 29, and younger brother Collin, 27, a defenseman, were Eagles teammates.

• The Spokane Chiefs’ six-game 2018 preseason schedule announced by the Western Hockey League last week will include none in Spokane.

The Chiefs will play three games in the annual Labor Day tournament in Everett from Aug. 31-Sept. 3 against Portland, Vancouver and Seattle on successive days.

They’ll play three more in Kennewick later in the month – meeting Seattle again on Sept. 6 and Tri-City on Sept. 8 in the Tri-Cities tournament, and wrap up the preseason on Sept. 15 against T-C.

Letters of intent

Gonzaga baseball – Josh Bristyan, Paradise Valley CC/Scottsdale, Arizona, INF; Guthrie Morrison, Edmonds, Washington, CC/Seattle, OF; Sebastian Morrow, Miles City, Montana, RHP.

Lewis-Clark State men’s track & field – Troy Hanes, Lewiston, 100m, PV; multitime state qualifier, fourth in 2018 5A State pole vault.