Locally: Travis Hughes, Jason Tebbets honored by National Wrestling Coaches Association
Two longtime Mead School District coaches, Travis Hughes and Jason Tebbets, have been honored by the National Wrestling Coaches Association.
Hughes, the Mt. Spokane head coach since 2001, was named the 2019 NWCA High School Boys Coach of the Year for the state of Washington.
Tebbets, the Mead assistant for 18 years, was named the 2019 NWCA High School Boys Assistant Coach of the Year for the state of Washington.
Under Hughes, Mt. Spokane has captured back-to-back State 3A championships and has had top-seven finishes the last seven years, four in the top three. The 2019 Wildcats scored 235.5 points at Mat Classic and had nine state placers.
They were also unbeaten Greater Spokane League champions, earning Hughes GSL 3A Coach of the Year; District 8 Sub-Regional champions; and Washington State 3A Dream Dual champions.
“He’s done a nice job,” said Mt. Spokane athletic director Paul Kautzman. “He’s an in-the-room type of coach, teaching the kids, telling them, ‘Let’s do it the right way.’ He’d rather have the kids get the credit” than himself.
With Tebbets’ assistance, Mead compiled an 11-1 record in 2019, won the Washington State 4A Dream Duals and District 4A championship, was second in regionals and fourth at state. The Panthers have had three top-four state finishes the last three years.
“He came to Mead in 2001 and we’ve been partners in crime ever since,” Mead head coach Phil McLean said of Tebbets. “I’ve been pretty fortunate.”
A 1992 Mead graduate and state qualifier, Tebbets was head coach at Lewis and Clark in 1999 and 2000 after being elevated from assistant coach before leaving to return to his alma mater.
“He’s had a big impact on a lot of young kids through the years,” McLean said.
College scene
Daniel Roy of Spokane, who will be a sophomore at Stanford this fall, continues to be the No. 1-ranked 18-and-under swimmer in the world in the men’s 200-meter breaststroke, USA Swimming announced.
The Gonzaga Prep graduate, who turned 19 in January, swam 2 minutes, 9.73 seconds in the TYR Pro Swim Series in Indianapolis in May 2018, a personal and national age-group record, to gain the ranking. No 18U swimmer has gone faster since.
• Gonzaga women’s golf signee Cassie Kim continues to win her way toward campus.
The Davis (Yakima) graduate, who will join the Bulldogs this fall, led the Washington team to a co-championship with Hawaii at the Girls Junior Americas Cup earlier this month in Murrieta, Georgia, while tying for individual medalist honors at 6-under-par 210 in the 54-hole tournament. Earlier this summer, Kim won the Pacific Northwest Junior PGA.
• India Jencks, a Gonzaga redshirt senior, has been named to the 2019 West Coast Conference women’s soccer preseason all-conference team and the Bulldogs were picked to finish fifth in the coaches’ preseason poll. It’s GU’s best predicted finish since 2016, when it was tabbed third.
Jencks, who led the Bulldogs in goals in 2018 for a second straight season with six that ranked eighth in the conference, was second-team All-WCC as a junior after earning honorable mention as a sophomore.
Kelsie Hedge, a Santa Clara redshirt junior from Post Falls, earlier named to the Hermann Trophy watch list that goes to the player judged to be the best in the country, was also on the All-WCC preseason team and her Broncos and BYU tied for first in the coaches’ poll.
• The Idaho men and women were selected to finish fifth in the Big Sky Conference cross country coaches’ preseason poll while the Eastern Washington men were tabbed ninth and the women 10th.
Defending champion Northern Arizona was a unanimous choice to win the men’s title after capturing a third straight NCAA championship last fall. The Lumberjacks women received nine of 11 first-place votes to receive the No. 1 nod.
• Idaho, which tied for the 2018 regular-season title, was voted to finish fifth and Eastern Washington was 11th in the Big Sky Conference volleyball coaches’ preseason poll.
Northern Arizona, which tied with Idaho atop the standings but defeated the Vandals in the conference tournament to claim the title, was voted No. 1.
Basketball
Kenny Tripp, a student manager at Nevada from 2011-15 working with Idaho interim men’s head coach Zac Claus and new assistant Doug Novsek, has joined the Vandals men’s staff as a graduate manager, Claus announced. Tripp spent last season as assistant coordinator of operations at Washington State.
Golf
Reid Hatley from Hayden Lake Country Club tied for second among the amateurs and sixth overall in the 2019 Northwest Open Invitational last week at Wine Valley Country Club in Walla Walla.
Hatley finished at 5-under 211 with rounds of 67-68-76, five shots back of winner Derek Berg, a professional from Issaquah, Washington.
Pro Loren Jeglum from Clarkston Country Club tied for second, three back at 209.
Amateur Matthew Ruel from Hangman Valley and North Idaho College coach Russell Grove were in a four-way tie for eighth and amateur Colt Sherrell from the University of Idaho was 14th at 213.
• Four amateurs from Spokane – RJ Merritt, Jeff Hannah, Jimmy Kimmel and Jamie Kalua – joined pro Darren Black of Rainier Golf and Country Club in Seattle to win the Northwest Open Pro-Am last week at Wine Valley with a 57-under total of 231 for 36 holes in the scramble format.
Senior Games
Bert Lueken of Colville and five members of the Hayden, Idaho-based Team Selkirk medaled in pickleball at the 2019 Washington State Senior Games earlier this month in Lacey.
Lueken collected the bronze medal in men’s singles in the 65-69:4.0 age group.
Douglas Hastings of Team Selkirk won three gold medals – in men’s singles in the 50-54:4.5 age group, men’s doubles 50-54:5.0 with Selkirk teammate Glen Peterson and mixed doubles 50-54:5.0 with another Selkirk teammate, Miok Lee. Takako Tourangeau of Team Selkirk teamed with Scott Lennan of Lake Forest Park, Wash., for silver in that mixed doubles age group.
Jim Stapleton of Team Selkirk earned gold in men’s doubles 55-59:4.5 with Tim Hoffnagle of Gig Harbor, Wash.; silver in men’s singles 55-59:4.0,3.5; and silver in mixed doubles 55-59:45 with Linda Hume of Gig Harbor.
Soccer
Tyler Brown, a 2016 Utah Valley graduate who is working on a master’s degree at Gonzaga, has joined the Bulldogs men’s team as a volunteer assistant coach, head coach Chris Watkins announced.
Brown has extensive experience coaching youth select teams, currently as the head coach of the Eastern Washington Surf ’04 boys premier team and as an assistant for its elite player development ’04 girls team. He played semiprofessional and club soccer in Europe.
Tennis
Taylor Gruber, who has played the past two seasons at Missouri, is transferring to Gonzaga and will have two years of eligibility, GU women’s coach D.J. Gurule announced.
She played singles and doubles for the Tigers, compiling a 16-11 overall record in singles during the spring season, and registered nine wins in doubles.
Volleyball
Washington State All-American McKenna Woodford, who twice played internationally as a member of U.S. Collegiate National Teams, has signed her first professional contract to play with Engelholms Volleyball (EVS) of Ängelholm, Sweden.
McKenna, a 2019 WSU graduate, capped her senior season by being named AVCA All-America honorable mention. She finished her four-year career eighth overall all-time at WSU in kills (1,257), eighth in kills per set (2.95) and fourth overall in total points (1,445.5).
EVS, a member of Swedish volleyball’s top division, the Elitserien Damer league, finished first overall last season and is five-time defending champion.
Miscellany
Megan O’Quin, who has spent more than 15 years working with college student-athletes, has joined the Eastern Washington University athletic department as its new associate athletic director for academic success, director of athletics Lynn Hickey announced.
O’Quin most recently worked in similar capacities at Fresno State, Northern Illinois and Oregon State, and earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from OSU. She is working on a doctorate in educational leadership.
O’Quin began her career in 2003 at Oregon State in the athletic department’s academic support area and became a counselor a year later, remaining in that role until August 2014. At Fresno State the last two years, she established an academic program that produced on average the highest-recorded academic year in the school’s history.
• Heath Senour has been hired as the University of Idaho’s associate athletic director for compliance after serving in the same position at Santa Clara the last nine months and at Kennesaw State the previous seven years.
Senour, who began his duties July 29, will direct all aspects of the athletic department’s rules education and compliance program and is the school’s liaison with the NCAA, affiliated conferences and outside groups regarding rules interpretations and compliance issues.
• For the 10th straight year, all Eastern Washington University home and away football and men’s basketball games during the 2019-20 seasons in the Spokane and Cheney area will be broadcast on the KXLY family of radio stations, including 700-AM ESPN and 105.3-FM.
Larry Weir returns as the play-by-play announcer for football and men’s basketball, and Paul Sorensen will handle football analysis and color commentary. This will be Weir’s 29th season doing football – he’s missed only one of 337 games in that period when he was broadcasting a basketball game at the same time – and his 27th in men’s basketball.