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

Local briefs: Mead grad Maddy Underwood honored by CSU Monterey Bay

Mead graduate Maddy Underwood was the top player at CSU Monterrey Bay in 2017. (Patrick Hagerty / For The Spokesman-Review)
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Maddy Underwood of Mead was named the Cal State University Monterey Bay Female Athlete of the Year, recognizing her for a senior season in which she led the volleyball team to within a win of its first NCAA Tournament appearance.

The Otters fell in the conference championship match.

The first-team All-California Collegiate Athletic Association outside hitter led the Otters in a handful of statistical categories, including points for a second straight season, kills and total attempts. She was second in service aces. She was also CCAA All-Academic.

Basketball

Bill Pilgeram, who cut his basketball coaching teeth at Colville in the mid-1990s, guiding the Indians boys to numerous league and district championships, has been named women’s head coach at Corban University in Salem, Oregon.

The Frontier League Coach of the Year in 1997, Pilgeram has been coaching at the high school level for more than 20 years. He’s been at Capital in Helena since 2006.

Austin Johnson, head men’s coach at Corban University the last two seasons, has been named men’s coach at Lewis-Clark State, where he was an assistant from 2010-16.

Johnson replaces Brandon Rinta, whom he had assisted, after Rinta accepted the head coaching position at his alma mater, Central Washington, last month.

College scene

Washington State junior volleyball player Taylor Mims from Billings was named the female winner of the state of Montana’s Little Sullivan Award last weekend.

Among three other finalists was former Gonzaga basketball player Jill Barta from Fairfield.

It’s Montana’s version of the National AAU Sullivan Award, honoring James E. Sullivan, the founder of the Amateur Athletic Union. Nominees are judged on “athletic excellence, leadership, character, sportsmanship, and ideals of amateurism.” It has been presented since 1955.

Mims, a 6-foot-3 opposite hitter, was a 2017 All-Pac-12 first-team selection after helping lead WSU to a second consecutive NCAA Tournament second-round appearance.

In the summer of 2017, Mims won a gold medal with the U.S. Collegiate National Team-Europe and was named to the all-tournament team at the 13th annual Global Challenge in Croatia. She’s on the CNT-Europe again this summer for the European Global Challenge.

• Washington State freshman Michaela Bayerlova has been named to the 2018 All-Pac-12 Conference first team in women’s tennis, the first Cougar to be named first team since the Northern and Southern divisions were combined in 1998.

Bayerlova, from Krumbach, Germany, has put together arguably the best season by a Cougar. She has a 27-5 singles record, a No. 23 national ranking and was selected to play in the 2018 NCAA Singles Championship field.

Adam Paulson, a Northwest Nazarene senior pitcher from Medical Lake and Lewis-Clark State, was named to the 2018 All-Great Northwest Athletic Conference first team in baseball. He had four wins and struck out 50 in 16 appearances.

The second team included Wyatt Setian, a Montana State-Billings freshman shortstop from Post Falls; and Northwest Nazarene sophomore outfielder Zach Penrod and sophomore second baseman Parker Price, both transfers from Gonzaga University.

Griffin Davis, a Central Washington senior pitcher from Ferris, received honorable mention.

• Three baseball players with area ties, including Washington State pitcher Collin Maier, have been selected by CoSIDA to Google Cloud Academic All-District 8 first teams.

Maier, a senior from Great Falls, was a Division I choice with a 3.92 cumulative GPA in mechanical engineering after receiving a bachelor’s degree in physical sciences.

Connor Cantu, a Pacific Lutheran senior outfielder from Mt. Spokane, and Whitworth senior infielder Joel Condreay from Renton, Washington, were named to the Division III team.

Cantu was the recipient of PLU’s George Fisher Scholar-Athlete Award as the graduating senior male student-athlete with the top GPA in the athletic department. He has a 3.86 in business.

Condreay has a 3.90 GPA in accounting.

All are eligible for Academic All-America teams.

• Honors keep coming Vanessa Shippy’s way at Oklahoma State.

Last week the senior from Lake City was named the Big-12 Softball Player of the Year for the second time – the first was in 2016 as a sophomore – and one of 10 finalists for the USA Softball Player of the Year award.

And for a third straight year, she was an NCAA Division I District 4 All-Academic selection with a 3.91 GPA in marketing and finance.

Shippy finished the regular season as the Big 12 leader in on-base percentage (.613), runs (65) and walks (54), and her .460 batting average was second. She is among the top 10 nationally in all four categories.

During her senior season, Shippy became the fifth player in Big 12 history to record at least 225 career hits, 150 walks, 150 runs and 125 runs batted in. She was selected 11th in the National Pro Fastpitch draft by the Cleveland Comets.

Madi Mott, a North Idaho freshman from Gladstone, Oregon, collected another NWAC Softball Pitcher of the Week award after being nearly unhittable in two starts, pitching a perfect game and one-hitter as the Cardinals ran the league’s best record to 43-3. They’re 28-2 atop the East Region.

Other than the one hit, she faced the minimum number of batters and struck out 13. Mott has a league-leading 23 wins and 1.68 ERA in 124 innings.

Rachael Johnson, a junior outfielder at Central Washington from University, is a repeater on the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Softball All-Academic team with a 3.55 GPA in apparel.

• Two North Idaho College sophomore softball players have signed letters of intent with four-year schools.

Mckenzie Schaller, an infielder/outfielder from Vancouver, Washington, signed with Columbia (South Carolina) College. She is batting .400 with 36 hits, including four doubles and a triple, and 17 RBIs.

Megan Carver, an infielder from Auburn, Washington, signed with Keiser University in West Palm Beach, Florida. Carver is sixth in the NWAC with a .519 average. Her 69 hits include 17 doubles, three triples and 10 home runs. She has 56 RBIs.

• Senior Logan Stahl and junior Madison Doepker, both from track and field, are the Eastern Washington Scholar-Athletes of the Month for April.

During the month, Stahl, who has a 3.28 GPA in engineering technology and manufacturing, had two firsts and a second in the 800m, and turned in his personal-best time of 1 minute, 50.72 seconds at the Beach Invitational that was good for third best in the Big Sky.

Doepker, with a 3.98 GPA in accounting, placed second in the hammer at the 46th Pelluer Invitational with a throw of 166 feet, 3 inches. At the OSU High Performance meet, she was fifth in the javelin with a 149-3 that ranks third in the Big Sky and fifth in the discus at 141-8.

Hockey

Five former Chiefs, including Spokane native Derek Ryan, are participating in the 2018 IIHF World Championship in Denmark.

Ryan, a Shadle Park graduate and Chief from 2003-07, is the lone Western Hockey League graduate playing for Team USA. The forward just completed his second full season with the Carolina Hurricanes in the NHL.

Winger Dominic Zwerger (2013-16) and defenseman Stefan Ulmer (2007-10) are playing for Austria. Both are playing professionally in Switzerland.

Former Chiefs coach Bill Peters (2005-08), who led Spokane to the Memorial Cup in his final season, is coaching Team Canada. He was recently named head coach of the Calgary Flames in the NHL after coaching Carolina the last four seasons.

Rikard Grönborg, Chiefs assistant coach in 2004-05, is head coach of the Swedish national team.

Letters of intent

Lewis-Clark State women’s and men’s track and field/cross country – Brooke McClurkin, Coeur d’Alene, sprinter/hurdler, state qualifier; Jacinta Kuther, Nezperce, Idaho; Connor Turpin, Lewiston; Joshua Lay, Troy, Idaho.

Washington State women’s tennis – Soomin Kim, Seoul, South Korea.

Tennis

Peter MacDonald, head men’s tennis coach at Gonzaga University the last 13 seasons, resigned to become the director of tennis for Sunriver Resort and Sunriver Owners Assosciation in Bend, Oregon, the school announced.

MacDonald led GU to the program’s first winning season this year with a 10-9 record and had two players earn All-WCC honors in singles and doubles. During his tenure, 17 players were All-WCC in singles or doubles and 25 were named to WCC All-Academic teams. His teams earned the ITA All-Academic Team honor five times.

Volleyball

Gonzaga bolstered its 2018 roster with the addition of transfers Peighton De Von, a Spokane native, from Nevada, and Perry Ramsey from North Carolina State.

De Von, a three-sport athlete at Shadle Park, is returning home for her final season of eligibility. The 6-foot middle blocker/right-side hitter spent the last four years at Nevada, including a redshirt year in 2014. Last year she led Nevada with 102 blocks and was second in kills with 244 and was All-Mountain West honorable mention.

Ramsey, a native of Carrboro, North Carolina, also has one year left after an injury forced her to miss her season after she had been a starter and one of the Tar Heels’ top attackers her first three years. She had at least 140 kills in each of her three seasons on the court.