Locally: Idaho Vandals hire former NFL player Cody Booth as offensive line coach
Cody Booth, who coached tight ends at Colorado State last season and played three seasons in the National Football League, has been hired as the Idaho Vandals’ offensive line coach, head football coach Jason Eck announced Thursday.
Booth began his playing career as a walk-on tight end at Temple but shifted to the offensive line for his final season in 2013 as a tackle. The move proved valuable. Booth spent three years in the NFL as an offensive tackle with the Chicago Bears (2014), Jacksonville Jaguars (2014-15) and Washington (2016).
He joined the Colorado State staff in January 2020 after stints as an offensive graduate assistant at Temple (2017, 2018) and Boston College (2019).
At Colorado State, he worked with Trey McBride, who won the Mackey Award as the best tight end in college football. Eck said McBride “will probably be the first tight end to be drafted this year, and that is pretty impressive for a young coach like Cody.”
College scene
TJ Davis, an Eastern Oregon junior from Sandpoint and Community Colleges of Spokane, will enter the NAIA National Indoor Track & Field Championships March 3-5 in Brookings, South Dakota, ranked No. 1 in the country in the heptathlon with a score of 5,248.
Thanks to that outing, the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association named Davis its NAIA West Region Men’s Indoor Field Athlete of the Year. Davis compiled the second highest heptathlon mark in EOU indoor history the only time he competed in the multi-event competiton this season, finishing second at the Washington State Invitational against an NCAA Division I-heavy field.
• Maggie Nelson, an Eastern Washington senior from Liberty (Spangle) and Community Colleges of Spokane, broke her own school record in the women’s pentathlon on the first day of the Big Sky Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships on Feb. 24 in Bozeman, Montana.
Nelson had personal bests in four of the five events and scored 3,702 points. Her old record, set earlier this season, was 3,604.
• It’s eight Mountain West Conference men’s basketball freshman of the week honors in 10 weeks, and counting, for Mt. Spokane graduate Tyson Degenhart of Boise State.
The Broncos’ standout was honored Feb. 21 for averaging 10.5 points and 6.5 rebounds in wins over Air Force and Utah State the previous week. Degenhart shot 7 of 15 from the floor, including 2 of 6 on 3-pointers, and was 5 of 6 on free throws.
• Idaho junior Beyonce Bea was named Big Sky Conference women’s basketball player of the week on Feb. 22 after she scored 50 points and grabbed 18 rebounds in wins over Eastern Washington and Montana the previous week.
• Whitman senior Sydney Abbott of Davenport earned her second straight All-Northwest Conference second-team honor when the 2022 women’s and men’s all-conference basketball teams were announced.
Abbott, also a second-team women’s pick last season at Whitworth before transferring, led the Blues, and was third in the NWC, with 3.4 assists per game.
Olivia Mayer, a Whitworth freshman from Gonzaga Prep, earned honorable mention, the Pirates’ only women’s selection.
The Whitworth men landed senior forward JT McDermott on the first team and grad student forward Miguel Lopez and senior guard Garrett Paxton on the second team.
• Whitworth’s Momi Lyman and Maddy Thomas swept Northwest Conference softball player of the week honors for the week of Feb. 14-20.
Lyman, a freshman, pitched three complete-game wins with a 0.74 ERA and was named pitcher of the week.
Thomas, her senior catcher, was the position player of the week after she drove in eight runs and scored seven in six Pirates wins. She batted .375 with three home runs and two doubles.
• Two area athletes at College of Idaho, one at Eastern Oregon and one at Lewis-Clark State collected player of the week honors in the Cascade Collegiate Conference for the week of Feb. 14-20.
Haley Loffer, a C of I senior infielder from Lake City, was the softball POW after she hit .611 in six games with three three-hit games, scored 12 runs and had four walks and four stolen bases. She finished the week with six RBI and a .778 slugging percentage.
Caleb Brown, a C of I senior from Colfax, was the men’s indoor field athlete of the week after he posted a personal-best 4,667 points to win the heptathlon at the Polar Vortex Classic on his home track and qualify for the NAIA Championships.
Phillip Malatare, an Eastern Oregon junior transfer from North Idaho College, collected his third CCC men’s basketball honor of the season after he averaged 25 points and 10.5 rebounds in two Mounties victories. He had a career-high 14 rebounds in one game.
Riley Way, Lewis-Clark State’s senior shortstop from Lewiston, was the baseball POW after he helped the Warriors to a weekend sweep of NCAA Division II Central Washington. He was 9 for 19 with two doubles, three RBI, two stolen bases in two attempts and scored three runs.
• The Gonzaga University men’s tennis team received the program’s highest national ranking when the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rated the 6-1 Bulldogs 46th in Division I in its first ratings of 2022. GU’s previous high was 62nd on March 26, 2021, and Feb. 19, 2020.
• Washington State’s women’s 200-yard freestyle relay team set a school record when grad student Chloe Larson, freshmen Angela Di Palo and Noelle Harvey and senior Emily Barrier clocked 1 minute, 30.96 seconds, finishing sixth at the Pac-12 Swimming Championships Feb. 24 in Federal Way, Washington. That broke their own record set earlier this season.
• Whitworth came in a close second to defending champion George Fox in the Northwest Conference men’s and women’s preseason coaches’ outdoor track and field polls.
The Pirates men, second a year ago, return senior decathlete Joe Tingstad (Pullman) and junior throwers Luke Davis (University HS) and Reed Hurst, and have added freshmen sprinters Kainoa Figuiera (Mt. Spokane) and Solo Hines.
The women, who received two first-place votes after finishing third last season, will count on junior sprinter Mackenzie Ward (Ferris), freshman distance runner Madelyn Buckley (Lakeside-Nine Mile Falls), sophomores Amelia Hewson (hurdles) and Renee Tiumalu (throws) and freshman sprinter Alison Bell.
• The Eastern Washington football team will hold its annual awards banquet March 6 in the PUB NCR Room on campus. The public is invited. Cost is $20 in advance, $25 at the door. Doors will open at 1 p.m. For more information, contact Jase Burorac at jbutorac@ewu.edu
Letters of intent
Whitworth football: Carson Tucker, WR, Post Falls HS.
Shooting
Spokane Junior Rifle Club had two top-six finishers in the Individual Precision competition during the 2022 Washington State Jr. Olympic 3-Position Air Rifle Championships Feb. 12 at the Spokane Rifle Club.
Sean Kegley, 17, who is home-schooled, was fifth in the 37-shooter field with a score of 572 out of 600, and Garrett Pearsall, 17, Mt. Spokane HS, was sixth with a 571. Kegley and Pearsall were joined by Derek Phipps, 17, Gonzaga Prep, and Ensley Breeden, 13, Mountainside MS, on the SJRC Gold Team that finished second in a six-team state field.
SJRC had the only two shooters in the Individual Sporter competition. Spencer Fitzpatrick, 15, who is home-schooled, won the state championship with 419 out of 600. Reise Smith, 14, Ignite Learning Academy, was second.