Local roundup: Gonzaga men’s cross country finishes 27th at NCAA Championships

From staff reports

The Gonzaga University men’s cross country team, in the program’s first appearance in the NCAA Division I Championships, finished 27th on Monday in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and redshirt junior Yacine Guermali had the school’s best-ever individual finish, 55th.

Guermali ran the 10,000-meter course in 31 minutes, 3 seconds. Senior Peter Hogan finished 79th at 31:16.7. Prior to this season, the program’s best finish was by Matthew Crichlow in 2015, when he placed 134th in 31:16.

Other Zags and their finishes: redshirt freshman Evan Bates, 134, 32:02.8; redshirt junior Dominic Arce, 211, 33:08.3; freshman Wil Smith (Lewis and Clark), 217, 33:18.7; junior James Mwaura, 225, 33:44.6.; and redshirt junior Cullen McEachern, 227, 33:56.7.

Junior Kristen Garcia represented the GU women, placing 129th at 21:44.1 for 6,000 meters. She was the first GU female in the event since the Bulldogs qualified as a team in 2015 and finished 25th, led by Shelby Mills in 82nd at 20:44.

Washington State was represented by redshirt junior Erin Mullins, who finished 123rd in the women’s field of 256 in 21:41.5.

BYU junior Conner Mantz became the first American to win the men’s title since 2008, finishing in 29:26.1. Northern Arizona won the men’s team championship with the University of Washington 25th. Mercy Chelangat, an Alabama junior, won the women’s race in 20:01.1. BYU won the team title with the UW 13th.

Bowling

Youth was served at the Spokane Junior Bowlers Tour stop at North Bowl on March 7 for the annual doubles tournament.

Mac Reese, 13, and Logenn Storer, 14, two of the younger bowlers in the program, watched along with everyone else as two of the JBT’s top bowlers, Jovan Mercado of Omak, Washington, and Kyle Groves of Spokane, put on a show during qualifying.

Mercado and Groves breezed through the first qualifying set and swept through match play, rolling 568 pins ahead of the field going into the four-team roll-off finals. Reese and Storer were fifth after the first set and climbed into third during match play qualifying.

Consistent Calvin Ruffner and Michael Bushyeager qualified second and Maliya Asadi and Cameron Comer jumped from sixth to earn the fourth qualifying spot and a match against Reese and Storer in the first round of the knock-out roll-offs.

Then it was time for them to put on their own show. Reese, in his first roll-off finals, put together his best three-game series ever, a 693, as he and Storer first knocked off Asadi and Comer 430-397 and then eliminated Ruffner and Bushyeager 441-358, earning the kids a shot at the top qualifiers.

In a nail-biter that went to the 10th frame, Reese and Storer prevailed 435-422.

Mercado had high game (279), series (1,019) and average (240) for the boys. Macey Schultz had high game (255) and average (181) for the girls but was edged 731-730 by Asadi for high series. One of the program’s youngest bowlers, Caiden Ramelow, 10, had his first 200, a 212.

The next JBT will be March 21 at Lilac Lanes.

Basketball

Eastern Washington men’s basketball coach Shanty Legans is a finalist for two awards given annually to collegiate men’s basketball coaches by CollegeInsider.com

The fourth-year Eagles head coach is one of 25 finalists for both the Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award that goes to a coach who not only achieves success on the court but also displays moral integrity off the floor, and the Ben Jobe Award presented to the top NCAA Division I minority coach. Both winners will be announced on April 1.

Prosser, head men’s basketball coach at Wake Forest at the time of his death in 2007, is the only coach in NCAA history to take three schools to the NCAA Tournament in his first year coaching the teams. He also coached at Xavier and Loyola Maryland.

Jobe, an icon in the history of basketball at historically Black colleges and universities, is best known as head coach at Southern University, a position he held for 12 seasons. He was also coach at Alabama A&M, Alabama State, Talladega, Tuskegee and South Carolina State.

Letters of intent

Idaho men’s track and field/cross country: John Peckham, distances, Sisters, Oregon.