Area roundup: Whitworth foursome selected all-league

Whitworth seniors Julia Johnson and Taylor Gilbert join junior Peyton McMahon and freshman Madi Perez on the All-Northwest Conference softball first team, which was selected by the coaches and announced Tuesday.

The Pirates placed six members on the all-league team, including second teamer Alyssa Hall and honorable mention selection Shannon Wessel.

It is Johnson’s second all-conference honor. The infielder led the NWC with nine home runs and 30 walks in 2014. Her 40 RBIs were the third most in the conference. Her home run and walks numbers are season records at Whitworth. Gilbert closed out her college career by leading the Pirates with a .385 batting average, hitting 10 doubles and knocking in 26 runs. As a pitcher, she ranked third in the league with a 1.81 ERA.

McMahon’s .371 batting average ranked second on the team, and she had 31 putouts with a .971 fielding percentage. Perez’s 15 wins were the second most in the league and she ranked fourth with a 1.87 ERA and 68 strikeouts.

The Pirates finished the 2014 campaign with a 27-16 overall record, including an 18-10 NWC mark that sent them to the NWC tournament for the second consecutive year.

Track and field

Eastern hammer thrower Jordan Arakawa is the Big Sky Conference co-field athlete of the week, his fourth of the outdoor season.

His throw of 210 feet, 1 inch at the Duane Hartman Invitational was the fourth time this season he has topped the 210 mark. He has won the hammer in four of the six meets he’s competed in this season. His teammate Zack Nielsen has placed second behind Arakawa in each of his first-place finishes.

Arakawa shared the honor with University of Montana’s Keith Webber, who cleared a conference-leading height of 17 feet, 2 3/4 inches in the pole vault. Webber, who attended Mead High, broke the UM outdoor record of 16-10 3/4 from 2002.