Locally: Washington State’s Savanna Ly-Nguyen named Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar
Savanna Ly-Nguyen, a Washington State University junior tennis player from Brampton, Ontario, is one of 10 women student-athletes nationwide named a 2021 Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar by the magazine Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.
It recognizes “outstanding minority young men and women who have distinguished themselves in their academic and athletic pursuits.” Of the close to 1,000 nominated, 10 of each gender were named finalists. One male and one female will be selected as Sports Scholar of the Year.
That announcement will take place prior to the April 29 issue, when the magazine will publish its annual Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholars special edition.
“In addition to their athletic ability, the students named 2021 Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholars are students of color who have maintained a cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.5, are at least a sophomore academically, and have been active on their campuses or in their communities,” the announcement read.
Midway through her 2021 season, Ly-Nguyen has a team-leading 11-1 singles record for the Cougars and carries a 3.95 GPA as a neuroscience major. She is a member of the President’s Honor Roll and is a two-time selection for the ITA Academic Achievement Award. She was named to the 2020 Pac-12 spring academic honor roll.
Ly-Nguyen has volunteered her time at WSU athletics community service projects, helping at free tennis clinics for local residents and prepandemic, volunteering at Circles of Caring, a unique day program in Pullman that provides a safe, caring and nurturing atmosphere for adults and elders.
Off campus, she has represented Vietnam at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games, capturing the silver medal, and has been one of the top junior players in her Canadian province, winning three women’s national singles and doubles tournaments in Vietnam over the past two years. She also represented Vietnam at the 2018 Asian Games.
College scene
Washington State senior Chloe Larson improved her seeding in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events at the 2021 NCAA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships during the weekend in Indianapolis but failed to advance to the final 16 in either event.
The Pac-12 50-yard champion recorded a 22.37-second time in the preliminaries Friday and wound up 25th in the 62-swimmer field. She was a couple hundredths of a second away from earning a spot into the top 16. Larson had been seeded 28th with a school-record 22.16 qualifying time. She now has the top three 50 times on the school’s top-10 list.
In the 100, Larson tied for 23rd out of 60 swimmers, clocking 48.88 seconds, second-fastest in school history. That was three-tenths of a second from earning a spot in the top 16. She had been seeded 39th with a school-record 48.74 qualifying time.
• Ridge Lovett, a Nebraska sophomore from Post Falls, seeded fifth at 149 pounds in the 2021 NCAA Division I wrestling championships in St. Louis, won his first-round match by sudden victory but dropped his next two.
Against Michigan State’s 28th-seeded Peyton Omania in his first career NCAA Championships match, Lovett battled to a 4-4 tie through two periods of regulation and a scoreless third, sending the match to sudden victory. Lovett scored the deciding takedown with 30 seconds left in the first overtime period to take the match, 6-4.
After losing his second-round match 5-3 to No. 12 seed Max Murin of Iowa, Lovett was pinned by Duke’s 27th-seeded Josh Finesilver in his second consolation match to see his season end with a 9-3 overall record.
• John Dressel, a Colorado grad student from Mt. Spokane, took to the track Saturday for the first time since the cancellation of the outdoor track season last year and won the men’s 1,500 at the school’s annual Jerry Quiller Classic. The 10-time All-American timed 3:54.40 .
• Magda Jehlářová, Washington State’s sophomore middle from the Czech Republic, earned her first Pac-12 volleyball offensive player of the week award for her performance the week of March 8-14.
Jehlářová, who has received three defensive weekly awards, was impressive in the 3-1 win over Oregon State. She had 11 kills on 18 attacks with just two errors and finished the match hitting .500 overall and adding three total blocks. She followed that two days later in a three-set win over the Beavers with six kills, five blocks, four digs and hit .417.
• Quarterback Jaedyn Prewitt and kicker Nate RaPue, a couple of juniors who were instrumental in Whitworth’s unbeaten four-game spring football season, picked up their third Northwest Conference player of the week awards for their performances in the Pirates’ 56-23 season-ending victory over Pacific Lutheran on March 13.
Prewitt won the offensive award after his best game as a Pirate, completing 23 of 38 passes for 458 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions in three quarters of work.
RaPue picked up special team honors after completing a perfect season, going 7 for 7 on extra points to finish the year 19 for 19. He also made all six of his field goal kicks during the season. And in the finale, he averaged 41.8 yards on four punts, downing two inside the 20-yard-line.
• Eric Barriere has five Big Sky Conference weekly honors in his career. Now the Eastern Washington senior football quarterback has his first national weekly award.
After leading the Eagles back from a 42-31 deficit with 8:41 left to a 46-42 win at Idaho State in his 34th career game on March 13, Barriere was named the STATS Perform National Offensive Player of the Week as well as the BSC POW for a second straight week and fifth of his career.
Barriere passed for 455 yards and five touchdowns, completing 34 of 50 passes, and racked up 474 yards of total offense. He has five 400-yard passing performances in his career, 11 with at least 300 yards, and nine 400-plus and 16 300-plus-yard games of total offense .
• A couple of North Idaho athletes, Max McCullough from Post Falls and Logan Hunt from Timberlake, were rewarded with athlete-of-the-week honors in the Cascade Collegiate Conference for the week of March 7-14.
McCullough, a senior guard at Eastern Oregon, received the men’s basketball honor after he averaged 24.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 7.0 assists while playing 27 minutes in each game as the Mounties swept Multnomah University. He flirted with a triple-double in the second win, falling three boards and one assist shy.
Hunt, a College of Idaho freshman from Athol, the 2020 Idaho State 3A champion, was the CCC men’s cross country weekly winner after capturing the Walla Walla University Invite with a time of 26:23 for 8K. The Yotes had the first 10 finishers.
• Parker Bowden, an Eastern Washington senior from Central Valley, broke the school and facilities record at Oregon State in winning the 110-meter high hurdles in 13.90 seconds in the Eagles’ season-opening track meet on March 13 in Corvallis, Oregon. His PR was the second fastest time in the country this year.
• Gonzaga catcher Scott Lund was named West Coast Conference baseball player of the week after the redshirt freshman hit .440 in five games against top-15 opponents with three home runs. He had a team-high 11 hits and six RBIs as GU went 2-1 against No. 11 TCU, its first series win over a ranked opponent in nearly a decade, after losing twice to No. 9 Texas Tech.
• Mike Peterson, a Western Oregon senior pitcher from Pullman, was named the Great Northwest Athletic Conference baseball pitcher of the week after he collected his first victory of the season. He pitched a six-hitter with two walks and six strikeouts in a 5-2 series-opening victory over Central Washington on March 13.
• Christine Denny, a Carroll College senior from Liberty, earned her second Frontier Conference women’s basketball all-academic award and was joined by teammates Molly McDermott, a senior from Gonzaga Prep, and Erica Nessan, a sophomore from Mead, who received their first. All have GPAs of 3.20 or better.
• The Frontier men’s basketball all-academic team includes three from the area who are at least sophomores with GPAs of 3.20 or better: Shamrock Campbell, a junior from Ferris, and Jonathan Hillman, a sophomore from Genesis Prep (Post Falls), both at Carroll, and Logan Dreher, a sophomore from University HS, at Montana Western.
• After scoring two goals and adding an assist on March 12 and 14 as Eastern Washington swept two games from Portland State, Eagles sophomore Maddie Morgan was named Big Sky Conference women’s soccer offensive player of the week for the first time in her career and was honorable mention on TopDrawerSoccer.com’s national women’s team of the week.
Morgan, who has five of her seven career goals against Portland State, entered last week leading the Big Sky in scoring with five points.
• Seven athletes with area ties who are at least a sophomore in standing and carry a GPA of 3.20 or greater were named to Great Northwest Athletic Conference women’s soccer all-academic teams.
Central Washington: Jaxyn Farmen, sophomore, Medical Lake, 3.97 GPA; Makinzie Packwood, junior, Clarkston (repeater), 3.76. Montana State Billings: Hallie Vervair, senior, Mt. Spokane (third selection), 3.53. Northwest Nazarene: Kailyn LaBrosse, so., Central Valley, 3.71; Carolyn Moravec, so., Lewis and Clark, 3.91.
Saint Martin’s: Kendall Kemp, so., Ephrata, 3.54. Seattle Pacific: Marissa Bankey, so., CV, 3.26; Claire Neder, sr., 3.71, Mead (third selection).
Letters of intent
Idaho women’s tennis: Ines Oliveria, Setubal, Portugal.
Miscellany
Sarah Cummings, an assistant athletic trainer at Whitworth University for eight years, has been selected by the Washington State Athletic Trainers’ Association to receive its 2021 WSATA Difference Maker Award, recognizing the influence she has had on fellow athletic trainers.
Cummings, a 2006 University of Montana graduate who joined the Whitworth staff in the fall of 2013 after five years as an assistant athletic trainer at Montana Western, was nominated by seven trainers, several of them Whitworth alumni, and all of whom worked alongside her.
Some common themes of the nominations spoke to Cummings’ ability to impact those around her, “not through rehashing language from a text book, but by rolling up her sleeves and diving into the profession alongside each of her student ATs.
“This always built confidence and allowed us to hone our skill set with a mentor who was willing to work with us, pick us up after failures and celebrate our success!”