Locally: Former Shadle Park, Portland runner Nick Hauger finishes fifth at USATF Cross Country Championships
Nick Hauger’s professional career is off and running, you should pardon the expression.
The former Shadle Park and University of Portland standout made his pro debut with a fifth-place finish in the 2020 USATF Cross Country Championships on Saturday at Mission Bay Park in San Diego to qualify for the Pan American Championships Feb. 29 in Langford, British Columbia.
Hauger, a two-time NCAA Division I All-American at Portland, signed professionally with Team Hoka One One in the summer and has been living in Flagstaff, Arizona, working at a burger joint and training with the Northern Arizona Elite team.
“He’s really ingratiated himself in Flagstaff,” NAZ Elite head coach Ben Rosario told the Arizona Daily Sun prior to Hauger’s pro debut.
“In addition to feeling like this is the right place for him, he’s also just a naturally good competitor, especially at cross country. … I think he’s ready to attack; he’s not scared. I think he’s really ready to put it all out there.
“He’s been training really well and really enjoys the camaraderie aspect of the team. He’s very much a team guy coming from Portland.”
While the top three runners separated themselves from the field, Hauger was in a group of three to five contesting for fourth. Dillon Maggard, who also runs for Hoka One One, held off Hauger. Maggard timed 31 minutes, 7.4 seconds to Hauger’s 31:07.6. They were 32 seconds behind the winner.
Hauger had placed fourth at the State 3A cross country meet for Shadle as a junior and sixth as a senior in 2014.
Basketball
A career in the health care field apparently will have to wait for Jade Redmon. The former Mead standout is preparing to report next month to Adelaide, Australia, to begin her professional basketball career after signing with the Southern Tigers for the 2020 Premier League season.
Redmon graduated cum laude at the University of Nevada in community health science-public health in the spring of 2018, finishing her undergraduate degree with a 3.819 cumulative GPA, and began work a master’s in public health.
The school wrote in a press release announcing her selection as the March 2018 Wolf Pack Student-Athlete of the Month:
“After her final season with the Pack, Jade hopes to finish her master’s and begin working in healthcare administration.”
Those plans apparently are on hold as she tries her hand professionally in a game in which she had much success as an amateur.
A two-time All-Greater Spokane League selection at Mead, she was the State 4A Player of the Year as a senior after leading the Panthers to the state championship.
She played her first two years of college at Eastern Washington, posting the school’s first triple-double – 10 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists – in a win over Weber State in 2016 and was named All-Big Sky Conference honorable mention as a sophomore.
At Nevada, she was named to the All-Mountain West Conference first team as a senior after leading the Wolf Pack with a 15.2 ppg average, scoring in double figures in all but one game, and had a career-high 25 points in her final game.
She finished her four-year career between Eastern and Nevada with 1,258 points and was a three-time Mountain West scholar-athlete.
Bowling
Kyle Groves is on a roll in the Spokane Junior Bowlers Tour. And not even a change of format could derail the Mead sophomore.
Following up his victory in the first JBT of 2020 last month at North Bowl, he made it two in a row last Sunday, defeating Blake English 214-191 in a close match to win the title at Sunset Bowling center in Coeur d’Alene.
Because of a low turnout, the format was tweaked so that all the bowlers rolled eight qualifying games and the field was cut to the top four, instead of five, for the roll off finals.
Groves averaged 240 for the eight games to claim the top spot with Wyatt Grunwald’s 923 in the second of two four-game series earning him the No. 2 position. Spencer Au scored 871 for a 209 average to join the finals for the first time in third.
Consistency earned English the No. 4 spot, and he kept it going in the roll offs to defeat first Au and then Grunwald to earn the championship match against Groves.
Groves led the boys with a 289 game and 237 average and Grace Remendowski led the girls with a 212 game and 183 average.
The next JBT will be Feb. 23 at Players & Spectators.
College scene
Parker Bowden, an Eastern Washington senior from Central Valley, broke his school record in the men’s 60-meter hurdles when he ran 7.97 seconds in finishing second at the University of Washington Indoor last weekend in Seattle and matched it with a second-place finish at the Idaho Open on Thursday.
Bowden had set the record at 8.0 in the 2018 Big Sky Conference Championships.
EWU freshman Nyenuchi Okemgbo ran 8.96 in the women’s 60 hurdles preliminaries at UW to match her season best that ranks No. 3 in school history.
• Sophomore Charisma Taylor turned in the third-fastest time in Washington State indoor track history when she ran 8.27 in winning the women’s 60 hurdles last weekend at the Boise Invite.
• After Whitworth’s first indoor track meet of the season at the University of Idaho, three Pirates are in position to qualify for the NCAA Division III Indoor National Championships in the pentathlon.
Senior Nick McGill (fifth nationally with 4,523 points) and sophomore Joe Tingstad (Pullman) are in the men’s rankings and sophomore Madison Peffers is 16th in the women’s. It takes a top-20 placing when the season ends to qualify for nationals.
Pirates freshman Samson Irish-Lodge came within 2 inches of the school indoor record in the men’s triple jump in his first collegiate meet, placing fourth with a mark of 44 feet, 9 inches.
• Jacob Davison, who averaged 21.5 points, 2.5 steals, 2.5 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocked shots in Eastern Washington’s road sweep of Idaho and Montana State on Jan. 16 and Jan. 18, has been selected by the Big Sky Conference and College Sports Madness as their Big Sky men’s basketball Player of the Week.
The junior guard finished a 17-point performance with two free throws to seal a 78-75 win at Idaho and followed with 26 points in a 71-58 win at Montana State. He scored eight points in the Eagles’ game-deciding 23-6 run, and capped it with six free throws in the final 3:30.
• Senior basketball players Borislava Hristova and Jervae Robinson are the Washington State Academic Services’ Student-Athletes of the Month for January.
Hristova, a fifth-year senior, has proven herself one of the all-time greats on the court at WSU while working in degrees in sport management and social science. She is WSU’s all-time leading basketball scorer, surpassing both previous men’s and women’s leaders. In the classroom, she has earned a spot on the WSU athletics all-academic team.
Robinson, a junior college transfer in his second year at WSU, has a 3.05 GPA pursuing a degree in social science. He has been the Cougars’ starting point guard on the court and spends his limited free time volunteering in a variety of campus activities.
• The Washington State Spirit Squad brought home two top-nine placings from the Universal Cheerleaders Association and Universal Dancers Association College Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championships last weekend at Orlando, Florida.
The Crimson Girls placed third overall for a second straight year in the 2-year-old Dance Game Day category and ninth in the Division 1A Jazz finals, advancing to the finals for a fourth straight year with a fourth top-10 placing. The team was fifth last year.
Cheer also had a strong showing in the Division 1A Game Day semifinals.
“I am very proud of our athletes and their representation of WSU on the national stage,” WSU Spirit coordinator and head cheer coach Jordan Benedict said.
“Throughout the season our athletes dedicate so much of their time toward supporting other (WSU sports), it’s really awesome for them to have the opportunity to compete for themselves. I am very happy that both of our teams had their moment in the spotlight and the opportunity to showcase their talent and hard work.”
Kaila Evenoff, a Crimson Girl when she attended WSU and a three-time All-GSL gymnast and state qualifier at Shadle Park and Mead, is the assistant spirit coordinator and Crimson Girls coach.
• Fifteen athletes with area ties at Idaho and 11 at Eastern Washington who have maintained a 3.20 cumulative GPA or better have been named to Big Sky Conference Fall All-Academic teams.
Idaho: Football – Jed Byers, sophomore, Pullman; Nate DeGraw, junior, Post Falls; Logan Kendall, so., Cheney; Kyle Perry, so., Sandpoint; Mason Petrino, senior, Pullman; Connor Whitney, so., West Valley. Soccer – Morgan Crosby, sr., University; Maddie Hass, so., Lewiston; Emmy Moore, freshman, Deer Park.
Men’s cross country – Josiah Anderson, sr., Logos (Moscow); Ryan Kline, fr., Central Valley; Ben Shaw, so., Riverside. Women’s cross country – Erica Pecha, so., CV; Kara Story, sr., Coeur d’Alene HS; Krista Story, sr., CdA HS.
Eastern Washington: Football – Silas Perreiah, fr., Northwest Christian. Volleyball – Hailee Etter, jr., Shadle Park/North Idaho College; Alisha Straw, jr., Freeman/Community Colleges of Spokane. Soccer – Kaelyn Barnes, so., CV; Riley Walkington, fr., Sandpoint.
Men’s cross country – Isaac Barville, jr., University; Jacob Christner, so., North Central; Ethan Green, jr., Ephrata/CCS; Jack Sloan, so., U-Hi; Jacob Stirpe, so., Ferris. Women’s cross country – Kenzie Gaines, fr., Lewis and Clark.
• Six area athletes who are at least sophomores and have GPAs of 3.0 or better have been named to the Frontier Conference 2019 Volleyball Academic All-Conference team.
The athletes by school: Carroll College – Laurel Kassa, junior, Mead; Lexi Mikkelsen, sophomore, Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls); Aliya Williams, jr., Coeur d’Alene HS. Lewis-Clark State – Sydney Lawrence, senior, Pullman. Montana Tech – Sydney Parks, so., Post Falls. Rocky Mountain – Madison Stoddard, so., Lewiston.
Hockey
Spokane Chiefs defenseman Filip Kral was named to the Vaughan CHL Team of the Week for his performances the week of Jan. 6-12.
The Toronto Maple Leafs prospect finished the week with five points (one goal, four assists), registering at least one point in each of his last four outings. That stretch included a goal and an assist in the Chiefs’ 6-3 road win over the Vancouver Giants on Jan. 11.
Letters of intent
Gonzaga women’s track/cross country: Aayiana Fuller, distances, University, ninth in State 4A track 800 as a junior for Hanford and seventh in State 4A cross country as a senior for U-Hi.
Lewis-Clark State track/cross country: Abigail Gorton, distances, Bonners Ferry, fifth at 3A State cross country as a junior; Keelyn Pilcher, hurdler/jumper, Moscow, 2019 district 300 hurdles champion, third in high jump; Brady Nelson, distances, Sandpoint, three-time 4A State cross country qualifier, State 3,200 qualifier as a junior.
Idaho women’s track: Prabhasha Wickramaarachchi, hurdler/jumper, Langley, British Columbia.
Lewis-Clark State women’s golf: Kyla Currie, Lake City, regional champion as a sophomore and junior, two-time 5A State placer (seventh as a sophomore, sixth as a junior), 3.5 GPA.
Gonzaga women’s rowing: Savanna Neuman, Marysville, Washington (Lake Stevens HS); Olivia Feistner, Sammamish, Wash. (Skyline HS); Colleen Weber, Newport Beach, California; Samantha Claborn, Windermere, Florida. All are rowers.
Idaho men’s tennis: Althaf Dhaifullah, Bandung, Indonesia.