Locally: Former Shadle Park standout Nick Hauger places ninth at 2020 Pan Am Cross Country Cup

Former Shadle Park standout Nick Hauger finished ninth, and was the fourth American, in the 2020 Pan Am Cross Country Cup on Saturday in Langford, British Columbia.

Hauger, who was fifth in the USATF Cross Country Championships in San Diego on Jan. 18 to qualify for the Pan Am Cup and running professionally for Northern Arizona Elite, covered the 10km course over the Jack Nicklaus-designed Valley Golf Course at Bear Mountain Resort in 33 minutes, 45 seconds.

Johnatas De Oliveria Cruz of Brazil won the race in 32:50.

• Kyle King was the top finisher of three former Eastern Washington University runners in the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Team trials on a windy, chilly Saturday in Atlanta.

King, a two-time Big Sky Conference champion in 2011 and 2012 before transferring to Oklahoma and now running for the U.S. Marines, was 47th out of 175 runners in the men’s field. He timed 2 hours, 18 minutes, 20 seconds for 26.2 miles.

Sarah Reiter, who ran for the Eagles from 2014-17 and holds the school 5,000-meter record, was 67th out of 390 women, timing 2:42:12.

Kari Hamilton, an Eagle from 2013-18 with top-10 school times in four distance events, placed 205th, timing 2:49.12.

Galen Rupp, bronze medalist at the 2016 Rio Games, won his second straight U.S. Marathon in 2:09:20 and will lead the men’s team to Japan. Jacob Riley (2:10:02) was second and Abdi Abdirahman (2:10:03) was third.

The top three women forming the U.S. team are Aliphine Tuliamuk (2:27:23), Molly Seidel in her first marathon (2:27:31) and Sally Kipyego (2:28:52).

Bowling

Skyler Ackerman, one of the up-and-coming girls on the Spokane Junior Bowlers Tour, stepped into the spotlight at Players & Spectators last Sunday.

At one of the highest-scoring tournaments of the young season, Ackerman had high game of the day, a 279, and highest series, a 963 during the match play portion of qualifying that vaulted her from 13th into third and earned her a spot in the five-player roll-offs for the first time.

But at the end of the day, it was top-qualifier Alex Holodnick who came out on top, defeating hard-charging Kaleb Ramelow 258-225 for the championship.

Ramelow, who had qualified fifth, put together a 720 three-game series to start the roll-offs, defeating Blake English, then beat Ackerman and the No. 2 qualifier, Cameron Comer, to get a shot at Holodnick. Comer, who had qualified with 906 series, finished third; Ackerman was fourth; and English fifth.

Holodnick, who had a 955 four-game series in the first round of qualifying, averaged 229 for the day and shared high game for the boys with Comer with 269s. Ackerman averaged 219.

The JBT is back in action Sunday at North Bowl.

College scene

Greater Spokane League graduates Courtney Carolan (Central Valley) and Quincy McDeid (North Central) and Sydney Abbott from Davenport collected honors when the All-Northwest Conference women’s basketball teams were announced.

Carolan, a junior guard at Pacific, leads the Boxers in scoring (14.7 ppg) and ranks sixth in the conference. She is second in the NWC in minutes played (33.1 average). She was All-NWC honorable mention as a sophomore.

Whitworth freshman forward McDeid and sophomore guard Abbott are tied for seventh in the conference in scoring (14.4). McDeid is fourth in the NWC in both 3-point shooting (39.1%) and free-throw shooting (81.1%). Abbott is third in assists (3.6) and averaged 5.5 rebounds.

• Nick Drynan’s solid first year at Pacific earned the West Valley graduate Northwest Conference Men’s Basketball Freshman of the Year honors and honorable mention on the all-conference team. He was fifth in conference scoring (17.5 ppg) and second in 3-point accuracy (48.8%).

• For the third time this season, and in his career, Eastern Washington senior Mason Peatling was the Big Sky Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Week.

The 6-foot-8 forward averaged 27.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 1.0 steals in a weekend sweep of Sacramento State and Northern Arizona. He made 66.7% of his field-goal attempts (22 of 33), 5 of 8 3-pointers and 6 of 8 free throws.

• Adam Hiatt from Bonners Ferry, in his fourth year as men’s basketball coach at Montana Tech, was named the HoopDirt.com Coach of the Week after leading the Orediggers to upsets over two top-25 teams.

They beat No. 17 Carroll College 74-66 and No. 3 Lewis-Clark State 67-64, dealing the Warriors their second loss that ended a 16-game winning streak. It’s the highest ranked team the Orediggers have defeated.

• Jaya Allen, a junior at Dickinson State (North Dakota), earned the North Star Athletic Association’s first Softball Pitcher of the Week award of 2020 for collecting a couple of victories as the Blue Hawks went 2-2 in a tournament in Aberdeen, South Dakota.

In 12 2/3 innings over three games, she gave up one run on seven hits and struck out 19, issuing just one walk. At the plate, she was 4 for 11 with a home run, one double and five RBIs.

• Senior Grant Shurtliff, in just his third indoor heptathlon for Eastern Washington, won the event at the Big Sky Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships on Friday in Pocatello with a school-record 5,285 points.

The transfer from Lane Community College had scored 5,212 earlier this season that was second on the EWU all-time list. The old record of 5,222 was set in 2012. He had a 174-point margin in recording the Eagles’ first Big Sky heptathlon title.

• A couple of former Pullman HS teammates had record-breaking performances in indoor track meets across the country from one another last weekend.

Mayyi Mahama, a sophomore at Penn, shattered the Ivy League indoor mark in the women’s weight throw with a toss of 70 feet, 3 3/4 inches at the Princeton Invitational. The old mark of 68-4 1/4 was set in 2013. She also finished seventh in the shot put at 38-11.

Angel Nkwonta, a senior at Washington, broke her school indoor record in the weight throw for the third time at the UW Last Chance meet, throwing 69-8 1/4 to win the event. She also took second in the shot with a PR throw of 50-11 1/2.

• Seattle Pacific senior Scout Cai from Colfax turned in an NCAA Division II Indoor Championship provisional qualifying score of 3,406 points with a second-place finish in the women’s pentathlon at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Indoor Championships last weekend in Nampa, Idaho.

Cai, who the shot put in the event, earned fourth straight All-GNAC and All-West Region honors. She was a first-team Indoor All-American in 2018.

• Nick McGill broke his Whitworth school record in the indoor pentathlon at the Portland Indoor Meet last weekend. The senior scored 4,958 points with a second-place finish. The mark is seventh nationally. It included a career-best long jump by more than a foot at 22- 1/4.

• It appears no Gonzaga women’s indoor track distance record is safe from Aimee Piercy this winter.

The junior shattered the mile record at the Last Chance Meet at Washington last weekend, running 4:45.48 to top the old mark of 4:54.92 and eclipse her PR of 4:59.33. She had earlier broken school 800 and 3,000 records.

Redshirt freshman James Mwaura ran the second-fastest indoor mile in GU men’s history at the meet, 4:03.96. The record is 4:01.67.

• Washington State sophomore Charisma Taylor set personal, school and meet indoor records when she ran 8.19 seconds in winning the women’s 60-meter hurdles at the Matador Qualifier in Lubbock, Texas, last weekend.

• Senior Owen Lempert, who led the Whitworth men to the Northwest Conference swimming championship with three individual and two relay victories and one third-place relay finish, was named the Outstanding Male Swimmer of the Meet.

Lempert won the 50- and 100-yard freestyle and 100 breaststroke and had a hand in the Pirates’ 200 and 400 medley relay wins and a third-place finish in the 200 free relay.

Hockey

Spokane Chiefs goaltender Lukas Parik was named the Ironworkers Local 14 Ironworker of the Week after the Los Angeles Kings prospect stopped 106 of 111 shots, a 0.955 save percentage, in three victories.

Letters of intent

Montana Tech football: Xavier Atkins, WR, Shadle Park, two-time 3A All-GSL.

Montana Tech volleyball: Shelby Draper, OH, Cheney, 2019 State Coaches Association 2A All-State honorable mention, two-time All-GNL first team.

Shooting

The Spokane Junior Rifle Club Gold Team will be trying to make history when it travels to Camp Perry, Ohio, July 11-13 to defend its Civilian Marksmanship Program 3-Position Air Rifle National Championship.

No team has won back-to-back national titles. SJRC took the first step by automatically qualifying for a repeat trip with a second-place finish at the 2020 Washington State Junior Olympic 3-Position Air Rifle Championships last month.

The SJRC team of Ben Tafoya (Gonzaga Prep), Zachary Pearsall (Mt. Spokane), Taylor Christian (Spokane Valley Tech) and Anna Pearsall (Mt. Spokane) combined to shoot 2,306 out of a possible 2,400, just five points behind the state champion.

Tafoya, Zachary Pearsall and Christian were on the 2019 national championship team. Anna Pearsall will replace Cassidy Wilson at Nationals. Wilson is attending college at Alaska Fairbanks and is not eligible to return.

Tafoya and Zachary Pearsall both shot 582 to place fourth and fifth, respectively, in the individual competition at the state championships to earn automatic qualifying spots in the Junior Olympic Nationals that are held in conjunction with the CMP championships. Christian shot 578 (12th) and Anna Pearsall 564 (26rd) at state.