Locally: Tyson McGuffin takes home two medals at International Indoor Pickleball Championship
Tyson McGuffin of Coeur d’Alene won gold and silver at the 2019 International Indoor Pickleball Championship last weekend in Centralia, Washington.
McGuffin, the top-ranked pickleball player in the world, captured the gold medal in men’s open singles and teamed with his Selkirk Sports coach, Morgan Evans, to take silver in men’s open doubles.
Lindsey Newman made the biggest haul for Hayden-based Team Selkirk, winning silver medals in women’s open singles, mixed open doubles with her brother, Riley Newman, and women’s open doubles with Michelle Esquivel.
Team Selkirk captured six other medals, including three more golds, with Doug Hastings winning the men’s singles senior open division, Miok Lee and Jay Rippel took gold in mixed doubles senior open and Steve Deakin won gold in men’s open doubles with Rick Witsken.
Hastings and Tony Tollenaar took bronze in men’s senior doubles open, Rippel won silver in men’s doubles senior open with Glen Peterson, and Lee earned a bronze in women’s senior doubles open.
Bowling
The third-seeded pair of Kyle Groves and Mac Reese won the Junior Bowlers Tour’s season-ending fun tournament last Sunday at Valley Bowl.
Groves and the 11-year-old Reese overcame top-seeded Wyatt Grunwald and Eli Storer 409-391. Groves put together a 757 series for the three roll-off games that included the day’s high game, a 279.
Kaleb Ramelow and his 8-year-old cousin, Caiden Ramelow, finished third, and Blake English and Dane Sellgren were fourth. Kaleb Ramelow had the day’s high average, a 240. Macey Schultz had the girls high game, a 221.
College scene
Daniel Roy, the Stanford freshman from Gonzaga Prep, earned his first NCAA All-America award for finishing 12th overall, and fourth in the B final, in the men’s 200-yard breaststroke at the 2019 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships late last month in Austin, Texas.
Roy’s time of 1 minute, 52.93 seconds shaved nearly a full second off his preliminary time and ranks third in program history. The program record is 1:52.55. Roy’s personal record of 1:51.69 was set at the Speedo Championship Series in March 2018 at Federal Way, Washington.
• Washington State sophomore Mackenzi Duarte competed in the preliminary rounds of the women’s 100 and 200 breaststroke at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. She had a lifetime-best 1:01.63 in the 100 and swam 2:11.33 in the 200 but didn’t advance in either. She finished the season with 11 wins – eight in the 200 and three in the 100.
• Western Washington senior JT Konrad was named the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Field Athlete of the Week after the Mt. Spokane graduate established an NCAA Championships provisional qualifying mark in the pole vault. He won the event at the UBC Open at 15 feet, 9 inches that ties for 13th in Division II this season.
It’s the second GNAC weekly award for Konrad, the 2019 conference indoor pole vault champion. He earned his first weekly honor during the 2018 indoor season.
• Community Colleges of Spokane earned NWAC weekly awards in women’s tennis and women’s track and field the first two weeks of the spring season.
Hannah Plank, a sophomore from Gonzaga Prep, was the tennis recipient in week two after she posted No. 1 singles and doubles victories against Bellevue to run her league records to 2-0 in both. Megan Patrick was her doubles partner.
Bayley Welk, a sophomore jumper from Mt. Spokane, was the Week 1 track and field winner after she scored 22.5 points for the Sasquatch at the Peyton Scoring meet at University of Puget Sound. She won the long jump (16-11) and triple jump (35-10) and ran a leg on the winning 4x100 relay.
• Vincent Rettke, a Gonzaga junior, was named the West Coast Conference Men’s Singles Tennis Player of the Week after he went 3-0, two of them come-from-behind efforts. Two of his wins clinched WCC team victories over San Francisco and Santa Clara. The other was in a nonleague team loss to UC Davis.
• Gonzaga and Washington State continue to be represented in the Oracle/Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s April 2 rankings.
GU senior Sophie Whittle, who was No. 1 in women’s singles in the Feb. 6 rankings, has slipped to No. 9 while she and senior teammate Graciela Rosas are No. 22 in doubles. Both are down a spot from their previous ranking.
WSU sophomore Michaela Bayerlova is No. 57 in singles, down from 51 in the previous rankings. Cougars freshman Hikaru Sato and senior Tiffany Mylonas made their debut in the doubles rankings at No. 75. As a team, WSU is ranked No. 36.
• Joey Biel, the junior punter/kicker on the Monmouth (Illinois) College football team from Northwest Christian, received the team’s Special Teams MVP award for a third straight year at the school’s annual football awards banquet last weekend.
Biel averaged a Midwest Conference-leading 40.56 yards on 50 punts and was No. 3 in the conference with 61 points. He made 6 of 11 field goals and 43 of 46 PATs.
• Six-time defending champion Brigham Young extended its lead in the West Coast Conference Commissioner’s Cup standings after the 2018-19 winter sports season.
BYU has compiled 57.5 points to 45 for runner-up Saint Mary’s. Gonzaga is third with 44.5.
BYU also leads the women’s all-sports competition with 39 points. Gonzaga is fourth with 23.5. Saint Mary’s and San Francisco are tied atop the tight men’s competition with 21.5 points to 21 for GU.
Golf
University of Idaho Vandal Athletics Hall of Famer Orlando Lightfoot will be the guest of honor at the 2019 Ada County Vandal Scramble May 3-4 in Boise.
The weekend includes a Friday night social and a Saturday golf tournament at Quail Hollow Golf Course. Entry fee is $150 for current Vandal Scholarship Fund members and $200 for nonmembers. Proceeds benefit the Vandal Scholarship Fund. Entry deadline is April 20.
Lightfoot was a two-time Big Sky Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Year (1993, 1994). Despite playing just three seasons, he remains Idaho’s all-time scoring leader with 2,102 points. After graduation, he played professionally 14 years in Europe.
Info: Tournament coordinator Suzy Stride, suzannestride@gmail.com.
Hockey
Blake Swetlikoff, a 15-year-old forward prospect from Regina, Saskatchewan, and a third-round pick of Spokane in the 2018 Western Hockey League Bantam Draft, signed a WHL standard player agreement and committed to playing for the Chiefs.
“Blake made great strides in his development this year,” Chiefs general manager Scott Carter said. “He is a hard-working two-way player who has also shown the ability to take a leadership role.”
This season he was the second-leading 2003-born skater for the Regina Pat Canadians Midget AAA team with 10 goals and 19 assists in 40 games and added a goal and two assists in eight playoff games. Swetlikoff also played for Team Saskatchewan at the 2019 Canada Winter Games, collecting two goals and three assists in six games.
• The Chiefs announced the extension of three members of the team’s staff – athletic trainer Joseph Hurley, assistant director of hockey operations Chris Baird and sports psychologist Jon Hammermeister. Each was extended two years, through the 2020-21 season.
Hurley, originally from Philadelphia, joined the Chiefs as athletic trainer and conditioning coach prior to the 2017-18 regular season. His resumé includes a stint with the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL.
Baird, a Lakeside High School graduate, began with the Chiefs as a part-time video coordinator during the 2006-07 campaign. He continued in that role before being brought on full time in his current position in August 2017.
Hammermeister, an Eastern Washington University professor since 1999, has more than 20 years of experience working with elite athletes, including consulting work with Major League Baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates.
Shooting
Cassidy Wilson captured the silver medal in the 2019 Washington State Air Rifle Championship to lead the showing of the Spokane Junior Rifle Team.
Wilson, 18, who is homeschooled, shot 976 out of a possible 1,000 in the two-match, combined-scores event, missing the gold medal by one point. A shooter from Olympia won the gold. SJRT’s Kylie Delany, 17, homeschooled, took the bronze with a 974.
Taylor Christian, 17, Spokane Valley Tech, won the first of the two matches in a tiebreaker after she, Wilson and Delaney all shot 387 out of a possible 400. Christian placed fourth overall with a 970. Wilson (589 out of 600) was second and Delaney (587) third in the second match.
SJRT’s Ben Tafoya, 16, Gonzaga Prep, placed eighth overall with a 954.
Summer camps
The Spokesman-Review is accepting submissions for summer camps that will appear in the 2019 Summer Plus section, which publishes May 1. They will also be included in an online directory at spokesman.com that will be available all spring and summer.
However, those received after March 14 will be included in the online directory, but are not guaranteed for the print version.
Information about any residential or day camp in our readership area will be accepted at no charge, including athletic camps, academic camps, theater camps, special needs camps and equine camps.
Please include the camp’s name, location, cost, age range and a short description, along with contact information for the public, such as a phone number, email or website.
Information can be submitted by email to summercamps@spokesman.com or uploaded online at www.spokesman.com/ summercamps-form/