Locally: Washington State Golf Association honors announces Players of the Year awards
Reid Hatley and Victoria Fallgren are repeat winners and Eric Ansett was honored for the first time when the Washington State Golf Association announced its 2018 players of the year.
Hatley, from Hayden Lake, was named the Men’s Mid-Amateur Player of the Year for the fourth year in a row.
This year he won both the Washington State and Pacific Northwest mid-amateur championships, was a quarterfinalist in the PNGA Men’s Amateur, and finished third in the Washington State Amateur. He also qualified for the U.S. Mid-Amateur and tied for sixth in the Mexican Amateur.
Fallgren, the assistant women’s golf coach at her alma mater, Gonzaga University, won a second straight Women’s Mid-Amateur Player of the Year award. She repeated as champion at the Washington State Women’s Mid-Amateur and tied for second in the WSGA Women’s Champion of Champions.
Ansett, a graduate of The Oaks Academy who played high school golf at Ferris, was named the Men’s Player of the Year.
The spring graduate of Lipscomb University in Tennessee had top-10 finishes in the Southern Amateur and Pacific Coast Amateur and top-15 finishes at the Sunnehanna Amateur and Sahalee Players Championship. He was medalist at a U.S. Amateur sectional qualifier, tied for 19th at the Canadian Amateur and helped a three-man WSGA team win the Morse Cup held in conjunction with the Pacific Coast Amateur.
Other players of the year are: Jamie Huo, Auburn, Washington, women; Tom Brandes, Bellevue, senior men; Leslie Folsom, Tukwila, Washington, senior women; Ian Siebers, Bellevue, junior boys; and Brittany Kwon, Bremerton, junior girls.
They will be honored at the 97th WSGA meeting Oct. 27 at The Home Course in DuPont, Wash.
• There was nothing to separate the teams in the 70th Hudson Cup and 27th Senior Hudson Cup last week at Overlake Golf & Country Club in Medina, Washington. Both matches, pitting 10 of the best professionals in the Northwest against 10 of the best amateurs, ended in 10-10 ties.
Nick Mandell, a former Washington State Cougar, figured in three victories for the amateurs in the Hudson Cup. He won his singles match Friday and helped produce wins in foursome and four ball Thursday. Another ex-Cougar, Derek Bayley from Rathdrum, won his singles match and joined Mandell in the foursome victory. Hatley, from Hayden Lake, had a foursome win.
On the pro side, Loren Jeglum from the University of Idaho course had a foursome win and halved his four ball and singles matches, and Ryan Benzel, a former Idaho Vandal from Ritzville now at Salahee Country Club in Renton, Washington, halved his singles match.
Pro Billy Bomar from Prairie Falls in Post Falls was the only area player in the Senior Hudson Cup. He and his partner halved their fourball match.
College scene
Katie Thronson is making a statement in women’s cross country at Tennessee.
In her first three collegiate races, the freshman from Lewis and Clark finished in the top three as the Lady Vols’ top finisher. She was fourth in her fourth race as Tennessee’s No. 2 finisher and earned a second straight Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Week honor and third in four meets.
At the Blazer Classic last week in Birmingham, Alabama, Thronson’s finish prompted Vols director of track and field/cross country Beth Alford-Sullivan to commen that she is “continuing to excel as a freshman.” Thronson ran the 6K course in 21 minutes, 9.77 seconds.
Her season best for the distance is 21:01.9 at the Wisconsin Invitational, where she was third overall.
• Cole Olsen, a Lewis-Clark State sophomore from Clearwater, Idaho, was named Frontier Conference Men’s Cross Country Runner of the Week for his performance in the Inland Empire Championships at Lewiston.
He ran 24.57 for 8K, finishing 18th out of 171 in a race that featured runners from NCAA Division I and II and nationally ranked NAIA schools. Olsen had the top finishing time of NAIA runners.
• Travis Hansen, a Lewis-Clark State sophomore from Clarkston, was named 2018-19 Frontier Conference Player of the Year in men’s golf and a member of the all-conference first team.
Hansen collected his first collegiate victory at the Argo Invitational Sept. 24-25 in Great Falls that included a tournament-low round of 5-under 65 and a 5-under 211 for 54 holes, earning him his first men’s golfer of the week honor.
All-conference teams are determined by results of regular-season tournaments, which were completed this fall. The Frontier representative to the NAIA nationals will be decided at the conference championships in the spring.
• Quarterback Leif Ericksen and defensive back Colten Chelin, two of the key players in Whitworth’s 52-13 homecoming victory over Pacific Lutheran, are the Northwest Conference football offensive and defensive players of the week, respectively.
Ericksen, a junior, played just 2 1/2 quarters, completing 31 of 40 passes for 303 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions.
Chelin and his defensive cohorts were on the field for just 19 minutes, limiting PLU to 146 yards, seven first downs and 3 of 13 third-down conversions. Chelin was in on six tackles, five of them solo, and one tackle for loss, intercepted a pass and forced a fumble.
• Idaho goalie Makayla Presgrave has been recognized by the Big Sky Conference as Women’s Soccer Defensive Player of the Week for the second time this season.
The senior from St. Maries and Kootenai High School picked up two shutout wins last weekend as the Vandals continued to climb the conference standings. She started out with a season-best eight saves in Idaho’s overtime win over Idaho State and added three saves against top-ranked Weber State on senior day for her seventh shutout of the season.
The shutouts are the second most in a season in team history, and her 11 career shutouts are tied for second. Her 1.00 goals-against-average this year puts her in the top-five in team history, and her career 1.27 goals-against average is the best ever at Idaho.
• USA Swimming has named Daniel Roy, the Stanford freshman from Gonzaga Prep, to the U.S. team that will compete at the 2019 World University Games July 4-10 in Naples, Italy. Roy will swim the men’s 200 breaststroke.
Roy is also listed second on USA Swimming’s third annual 18 & under World 100, a power-rating of U.S. teens who had top 100 times in the world in 2018. Roy’s time of 2 minutes, 9.73 seconds is No. 1 in the world in the men’s 200 breast.
• McKenna Russell, a middle blocker at Community Colleges of Spokane, is keeping it all in the family on the Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball awards list.
The freshman from Mead was named the NWAC Volleyball Athlete of the Week and East Region Offensive Player of the Week a week after triplet sister Lindsey was the conference player of the week and East setter of the week.
In two matches – six sets – as CCS remained unbeaten, McKenna had 26 kills with a 69.4 percent hitting efficiency, five blocks and two aces.
• McKenna Walker, a Northwest Nazarene senior guard from Moses Lake, has been named to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference preseason all-conference team in women’s basketball. She averaged 11 points a game last season for the Nighthawks.
The men’s preseason All-GNAC team includes Alaska Anchorage newcomer Tyler Brimhall, a junior guard/forward transfer from North Idaho College. He averaged 12.9 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.3 assists for the NWAC champion Cardinals.
• Gonzaga men’s cross country continues to make history. The Bulldogs received their first-ever national ranking, No. 26, in last week’s USTFCCCA poll, after collecting votes for the first time two weeks before.
“This is a great day for Gonzaga cross country,” director Pat Tyson said. “To be recognized by the national coaches, it means a lot. Our guys have worked so hard for this, but know they can achieve more.”
The Zags received 58 points in the national poll following a ninth-place finish at the NCAA Pre-Nationals in Madison, Wisconsin.
Gonzaga also had a split squad at the Inland Empire Championships in Lewiston, taking first in a field that included teams from Boise State (ranked eighth nationally) and Washington State (29th), which also had split teams there. GU compiled 55 points, WSU 68 and Boise State 69.
Hockey
Two Spokane Chiefs have been named to Western Hockey League teams for international competitions early next month.
Defenseman Ty Smith, the first-round selection of the New Jersey Devils, No. 17 overall, will be on the WHL team that competes against Team Russia in the first two games of the 2018 CIBC Canada Russia Series Nov. 5 in Kamloops and No. 6 in Vancouver.
The series will switch to Ontario Hockey League sites for games 3 and 4 and Quebec league sites for games 5 and 6.
Forward Jack Finley is one of 66 players selected to represent Canada at the 2018 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge Nov. 3-10 in Saint John and Quispamsis, New Brunswick. The players will be divided into three teams to play against the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the United States.
Shooting
Spokane Junior Rifle Club members Taylor Christian was second and Cassidy Wilson fourth out of eight competitors in the Civilian Marksmanship Program Western Airgun Championships last Sunday in Oregon City, Oregon.
Christian, 16, of Spokane Valley Tech, shot 578 out of 600 and Wilson, 18, home-schooled, shot 573. The winning score was 580.