Locally: Kicker Nate RaPue leads Whitworth football on All-Northwest Conference team
Whitworth landed five players on the first team and three on the second and six received honorable mention on the 2021 All-Northwest Conference football team following a 7-3 season, the eighth straight winning campaign under coach Rod Sandberg.
Senior Nate RaPue, whose 86 points on 11 of 17 field goals and 36 of 37 extra points led the Pirates in scoring, was the special teams kicker and was joined on the first-team by senior offensive lineman Anthony Christopher.
The first team also included Julien Sears (University HS), a junior offensive lineman from league champion Linfield. Sears was a second-team selection in 2019.
Seniors Rudyjay Keopuhiwa, a lineman; linebacker Jaylen Gonzales and defensive back Colten Chelin, were first-team defensive selections for Whitworth. Gonzales, hampered by injuries in 2018 and ’19, was first team in 2017.
Whitworth had senior wide receiver Jerusalem To’oto’o, sophomore linebacker Patrick Serrano and senior defensive back Bryce Hornbeck, an at-large selection, on the second team.
Pirates receiving honorable mention were seniors Jaedyn Prewitt (QB) and Dylan Peterson (DL), junior Ethan Peloquin (WR), and sophomores Solomon Hines (RB), Cody Bolig (OL) and Derrick Platt (LB).
College scene
Logan Hunt, the College of Idaho sophomore from Timberlake of Spirit Lake, Idaho, the Cascade Collegiate Conference men’s champion, finished third in the NAIA Cross Country Championships Friday in Vancouver, Washington, to earn All-America honors.
Hunt, who clocked 25 minutes, 58.9 seconds for 8,000 meters, led the Yotes to a fifth-place team finish in the 66th men’s championships.
• Washington State redshirt junior Brennan Jackson was named to the 2021 Division I CoSIDA football Academic All-District first team. He had a 3.31 GPA while earning his bachelor’s degree in business administration and currently has a 4.00 GPA while working toward his MBA.
• Jack Sendelbach, an Eastern Washington linebacker in his seventh season playing for the Eagles, has been named to the 2021 CoSIDA Academic All-District 8 Football Team. He graduated in spring quarter of 2019 with a marketing degree and is in a graduate program for sport and recreation administration with a 3.94 GPA.
• Gonzaga had three players honored on 2021 All-West Coast Conference men’s soccer teams. Junior forward Demitrius Kigeya and senior midfielder Frankie Ljucovic were named to the second team and defender Caleb Kiner was on the All-Freshman Team.
It’s the fourth postseason award for Kigeya, a 2018 All-Freshman selection who was also on the 2021 preseason all-league team. Ljucovic was honorable mention in the 2020-21 season.
• Travis Swallow from Coeur d’Alene and Bryan Maxwell from Spokane were recognized when the Great Northwest Athletic Conference named its men’s soccer all-conference teams.
Swallow, a Seattle Pacific senior midfielder from Lake City HS, honorable mention in 2019, was named to the second team. Maxwell, a Montana State Billings junior defender from Lewis and Clark, received honorable mention.
• Riley Walkington, a Concordia of Irvine, California, junior midfielder from Sandpoint, in her first season with the Eagles after transferring from Eastern Washington, was a 2020-21 All-PacWest Conference first-team selection in women’s soccer. She led the Eagles with five assists and added one goal, putting 14 of her 31 shots on goal.
• For a second straight season, Eastern Washington senior middle blocker/right-side hitter Ashlyn Blotzer has been named to the All-Big Sky Conference second team in volleyball. She ranked second in the Big Sky in hitting percentage (.322) and had 181 kills. She also averaged .68 blocks per set.
• Logan Reed, a Montana Tech redshirt sophomore middle blocker from Oakesdale, Washington, was the Orediggers volleyball Champions of Character recipient.
• Whitworth grad student Jordan Lester, who posted the Pirates’ first triple double in 12 years, was selected the Northwest Conference men’s basketball player of the week for Nov. 8-14.
The guard had 18 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists in a 146-110 win over Greenville (Illinois), and had a double-double the next night with 14 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists in a 74-66 win over Redlands (California).
• Senior Taylor McCoy (Pullman) and Washington State women’s swimmers broke three school records at the Phill Hansel Invitational in Houston last week.
McCoy broke her own 50-yard freestyle record with a 22.13-second leg leading off the 200 free relay with Angela Di Palo, Paige Gardner and Noelle Harvey that set a school mark of 1:30.99. McCoy also posted a school-record 4:14.58 in the 400 individual medley. The 50 free and 400 IM are both NCAA ‘B’ qualifying times.
High school scene
Four area runners had top-10 finishes in the 2021 Nike Northwest Cross Country Championships Nov. 12 in Eagle, Idaho, that drew more than 1,400 runners in four divisions.
Sammie Wood, a Post Falls senior, and Logan Hofstee, an East Valley sophomore, were fifth and sixth, respectively, in the women’s 5,000-meter championship race that had 149 finishers. Wood timed 18 minutes, 20.4 seconds, Hofstee 18:23.50.
Max Cervi-Skinner, a Coeur d’Alene HS freshman, placed sixth in the men’s 5,000-meter open invitational (16:27) in a field of 713. Kaitlyn Adamson, a West Valley senior, was seventh in the women’s 5,000 open invitational (19:32.50) with 431 runners.
Other area runners in the top 40 in their divisions:
Women’s championship: Alanna Parker, sr., Mead, 31st, 19:24.30.
Women’s open invitational: Teagen Beach, sr., Central Valley, 28th, 20:17.60; Roxanne Fredericksen, jr., West Valley, 39th, 20:29.70.
Men’s open invitational: Ben Smith, jr., Mt. Spokane, 12th, 16:47.10; Jacob King, so., CdA HS, 20th, 16:58.60; Ethan Sheneman, sr., Central Valley, 31st; 17:11.80; Zack Cervi-Skinner, fr., CdA HS, 33rd, 17:13.10; Noah Holden, jr., Mead, 34th, 17:13.50.
The Nike Cross Nationals finals, the traditional windup of the series, will not take place in 2021. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the event was conducted as a virtual competition last year.
Hockey
The Western Hockey League announced that the two Spokane Chiefs games against the Victoria Royals that were postponed because of COVID-19 protocol, have been rescheduled for Jan. 11 and 12 in Victoria, British Columbia. They were originally scheduled Nov. 12 and 13 but were postponed because two Chiefs players tested positive for the virus.
Shooting
Ken Freund of Spokane won the 21-and-over senior championship in the 2021 Washington State Indoor International Rifle Championships on Nov. 6 at the Spokane Rifle Club, scoring 966 out of a possible 1,200 in the smallbore (0.22) rifle competition.
Derek Phipps, 16, Gonzaga Prep, was the top-finishing member of the Spokane Junior Rifle Team, placing fourth in both the state and his intermediate junior class with a score of 1,070. Morgan Christian, 14, University HS shot 937 and was third in Sub Junior.