Locally: Central Valley graduate Kelsey Gumm pitches no-hitter for Dayton in win over George Mason

It’s a stretch Kelsey Gumm will long remember.

From March 30 through April 3, the University of Dayton softball senior from Central Valley pitched 14 innings, gave up two hits and no runs, highlighted by her first collegiate no-hitter, collected three wins and two awards.

The right-hander gave up one hit in a four-inning stint in a combined seven-inning, 6-0 shutout of Butler on March 30, striking out seven; gave up one hit in a five-inning, 8-0 run-rule shut out of George Mason with five strike outs on April 2; and finished it off April 3 with a five-inning no-hitter over George Mason with six strike outs in another run-rule game.

For that, which improved her record to 6-5 with an Atlantic 10 Conference-leading 2.10 ERA, she was named A-10 softball pitcher of the week on April 4 and the school’s female student-athlete of the week on April 6.

Gumm, the 2018 Greater Spokane League MVP pitcher who played her first two collegiate seasons at Seton Hall before transferring, had the A-10’s lowest opponent batting (.190), had allowed the fewest runs (29) and fewest earned runs (21), and was third with 71 strikeouts in 70 innings heading into the weekend. Her ERA ranks 100th in NCAA Division I in the country.

In her next outing after the no-hitter, on Saturday, Gumm shut out league-leading George Washington 1-0 on the road, allowing five hits with six strike outs in 62/3 innings before two relievers finished up.

College scene

Whitworth sophomore second baseman Haley Montoya was Northwest Conference softball position player of the week for March 23-April 8 after she hit .533 (8 for 15) with two home runs, a triple, seven RBIs and six runs scored to lead the Pirates’ sweep of Willamette. One of her home runs was inside the park. Defensively she had just one error in 25 chances.

• Shamrock Campbell, a Carroll College senior from Ferris, was named Frontier Conference men’s outdoor field athlete of the week on April 4 after he won the triple jump at a meet in Billings on April 2 in a field of nine with a jump of 45 feet, 11¼ inches.

On April 7, Campbell followed that with a winning jump of 47-1¾ at the Providence Open in Great Falls for an NAIA Nationals “B” qualifying mark.

• Impressive marks in the Hayward Premier meet in Eugene, Oregon, on April 1-2 earned Idaho grad student Grady Leonard Big Sky Conference field athlete of the week honors.

Leonard, from Coeur d’Alene HS, was the top collegiate athlete in the shot put, finishing second at 57 feet, 9¾ inches, and was sixth in the hammer at 212-8. He ranks first in the Big Sky, and 18th in the West Region, in the shot, and second in the conference and 14th in the West in the hammer.

• Gonzaga senior Kristen Garcia and freshman Ellie Armbruster broke school records April 1-2 during the women’s track and field team’s trip to California. Garcia clocked 33 minutes, 27.48 seconds for 10,000 and Armbruster broke her own 400 mark with a 57.47-second clocking.

• TJ Davis, Eastern Oregon’s multi athlete from Sandpoint and Community Colleges of Spokane, grabbed the top NAIA mark in the country in the decathlon April 1-2 and was named Cascade Collegiate College men’s field athlete of the week for March 28-April 3.

Davis scored 6,949 points, 358 more than the national runner-up, after winning six of the 10 events at the Northwest Nazarene Invitational in Nampa, Idaho, finishing second in two others with a third and a fourth. It’s the second-best decathlon mark all-time in EOU outdoor history.

• For compiling a 4-1 record and 2.86 ERA in 44 innings in his first seven starts, Gonzaga sophomore right-hander Gabriel Hughes remains on the Golden Spikes Award watch list at midseason. Hughes was on the preseason watch list for the award that selects the top amateur baseball player in the country.

• Kyle Clay, Corban’s sophomore outfielder from Central Valley, was the Cascade Collegiate Conference baseball player of the week for March 28-April 3. He hit .500 with three doubles and two triples among nine hits against nationally No. 3-ranked Lewis-Clark State’s strong pitching staff to help the Warriors split a four-game series.

• Jonny Hillman, a Carroll College junior from Genesis Prep in Post Falls, and Echo Anderson, a Carroll sophomore from Post Falls HS, were named to the Frontier Conference all-academic men’s and women’s golf teams, respectively, with GPAs of 3.25 or higher.

• Gonzaga’s Varsity 8 cracked last week’s Intercollegiate Rowing Association men’s Top 25 national poll at No. 25. Washington is No. 2 behind Yale.

Basketball

Jordan Mincy, 35, one of the youngest Division I coaches in the country, received the Joe B Hall Award as the top first-year Division I men’s coach after leading Jacksonville to 21 victories, more than double the school’s victory total from the previous season, and its most wins since 1986.

Among the finalists for the award were former Gonzaga assistant Tommy Lloyd, who was the NABC Coach of the Year after leading Arizona to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16, and Eastern Washington’s David Riley.

Hall of fame

Don Newman, a former University of Idaho basketball great who helped spark the Vandals’ turnaround in the late 1970s, will be a fifth individual inducted into the North Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame on April 16 at The Coeur d’Alene Resort.

Newman followed his career at Idaho (1978-80), in which he was Big Sky Conference player of the year as a senior when the Vandals qualified for the four-team conference tournament for the first time, with a six-year career in the Canadian Football League as a wide receiver although he hadn’t played the sport in high school or college.

Newman, who also played baseball at Idaho as a senior, was inducted into the UI hall of fame in 2018 shortly before he died at age 60 after a long battle with cancer.

He had a 31-year coaching career that started in 1985 as a football assistant at Lewiston HS. He was a basketball assistant at Washington State (1987-92), head coach at Sacramento State (1992-97) and Arizona State (1997-98), before going to the NBA, where he was an assistant for 17 years for four different teams.

Other inductees, who were announced last week, are Joel Thomas, Emily Faurholt Sann, Duane Ward and the late Jim Wilund.

Letters of intent

Carroll College football: Gunner Giulio, RB/S; Jaxson Washington, OL; Wyatt Sandford, OL, all Coeur d’Alene HS.

Weber State football: Cameren Cope, TE/DE, Coeur d’Alene HS.