EWU extends contract of men's hoop coach Earlywine
CHENEY - Eastern Washington University men's basketball coach Kirk Earlywine has received a contract extension and will return for his fourth season at the helm of the Eagles, EWU athletic director Bill Chaves announced.
Earlywine, 45, is 32-58 in his first three seasons, including a 17-31 record in the Big Sky Conference. With three freshmen in its starting lineup this past season, Eastern was 9-21 overall and 5-11 in the league, but placed seventh and missed the six-team league tournament for the fourth straight season. The Eagles lost 10 games by six points or less.
"We look forward to our men's basketball program turning the corner next year and again being a part of the Big Sky Tournament," Chaves said.
"From day one, I knew that this would be a long and difficult process," Earlywine said. "However, with the young players who stepped forward this year, along with our redshirts and our incoming recruiting class, I feel that we are very close to turning the corner."
NIC's Region 18 basketball
tourney games to be webcast
PRICE, Utah - YoMan Sports will provide a live webcast of the Region 18 men's and women's basketball tournaments from the Bunnell Dmitrich Athletic Center at http://www.yomansports.com/view_broadcast.php?bid=197.
NIC's men, ranked sixth in the NJCAA, open Friday at 6:30 p.m. PST vs. the winner of Thursday's game between Southern Idaho and Snow.
NIC's women, ranked 19th, open Thursday at 11 a.m. PST vs. Colorado Northwestern.
REGION 18 TOURNAMENTS
At Price, Utah
Times PST
Thursday's Games
1 p.m. - No. 3 Salt Lake (23-7) vs. No. 6 Colorado Northwestern (1-27)
6:30 - No. 4 Southern Idaho (19-11) vs. No. 5 Snow (10-20)
Friday's Games
1 p.m. - No. 2 Eastern Utah (21-9) vs. Salt Lake/Colorado Northwestern winner
6:30 - No. 1 North Idaho (26-4) vs. Southern Idaho/Snow winner
Saturday's Game
6:30 p.m. - Championship game
Thursday's Games
11 a.m. - No. 3 North Idaho (23-6) vs. No. 6 Colorado Northwestern (3-25)
4:30 p.m. - No. 4 Snow (21-9) vs. No. 5 Eastern Utah (7-23)
Friday's Games
11 a.m. - No. 2 Southern Idaho (22-8) vs. North Idaho/Colorado Northwestern winner
4:30 p.m. - No. 1 Salt Lake (24-5) vs. Snow/Eastern Utah winner
Saturday's Game
4 p.m. - Championship game
Vandal boosters meet
Thursday at Resort
COEUR d'ALENE - The Kootenai County Chapter of the Vandal Boosters will meet Thursday in the Shore Lounge at The Coeur d'Alene Resort from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.
A no-host lunch will be available, and the public is invited.
Road game at Nevada helps
finalize EWU football schedule
CHENEY - The 2010 schedule for the Eastern Washington football team is nearly complete, as a season-opening road game at Nevada will fill the 11th and final game on its schedule, EWU athletic director Bill Chaves announced.
The schedule includes six home games, but whether five or six of them take place at Woodward Field has yet to be determined.
EWU will play Nevada on Thursday, Sept. 2 in Reno. Eastern was originally going to open the season against Oregon State on Sept. 4, but that meeting was postponed to enable OSU the opportunity to play Texas Christian that same weekend at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Chaves said the Central Washington game on Sept. 11 may be played at Qwest Field in Seattle, but that has not been finalized yet as both schools are continuing to work out details.
If the Central game is moved to Seattle, Eastern's home opener at Woodward Field will be Sept. 18 when 12-time defending Big Sky Conference champion Montana visits. That game may also be the debut of the new red synthetic turf that is planned to be installed this summer at the 44-year-old stadium.
Chaves said the Oregon State game is now scheduled to be played on Aug. 31, 2013.
2010 EWU schedule
SEPTEMBER
2 - at Nevada. 11 - Central Washington (site to be determined). 18 - Montana. 25 - at Montana State.
OCTOBER
2 - at Weber State. 9 - Northern Arizona. 16 - at Northern Colorado. 23 - Sacramento State. 30 - at Portland State.
NOVEMBER
6 - Open. 13 - Southern Utah. 20 - Idaho State
Ex-Cd'A Laker Johnson
named WHL player of month
CALGARY, Alberta - Spokane Chiefs forward Tyler Johnson has been named the WHL Player of the Month for February.
The 19-year-old forward from Spokane, a former Coeur d'Alene Laker, notched 24 points through the month of February, finding the net 10 times and accumulating 14 assists to go along with a plus-8 rating. Johnson led all WHL players in scoring through February, picking up points in 10 of his 13 games played, 10 of which were multi-point nights, including four three-point games.
VIKINGS
from B1
"The spring session is the more high intensity of the two years," Moffat said. "With most kids, success breeds more success. It's a difficult sport to get kids out because you've got to watch your weight and it's just you out there. It's really a hard sport to sell kids on."
This year's championship team was among those first groups that wrestled when the program was getting going.
"We've had anywhere from 50 to 100 kids out for the program," Moffat said. "It's tough because you only keep a quarter of them throughout their career."
With the freestyle program, Coeur d'Alene already has more than 10 wrestlers committed to compete in the spring.
"(A.J) Konda, (Steven) Price, (Johnny) Peregrina are just some of them that are coming in already," Moffat said. "We had over 10 that came from the program on the team."
Moffat added it's the solid group of coaches and volunteers that have helped bring the Vikings to this point.
"If you don't have the infrastructure, it won't happen," Moffat said. "There's a lot of time involved and some people just don't want to spend it. I'm more of a hands-on coach, so I want to take the time to get to know the kids."
Coeur d'Alene has started to see some of the rewards of the Buzzsaw program in recent years, placing third in the 5A state tournament in 2005.
"Our success has started to grow over the years," Moffat said. "We've been with the top teams the past couple of years. Those guys in '05 were the ones that paved the way for this group."
Coeur d'Alene also placed fourth in 2007 and was 20 points away from finishing in the top four in 2006, but missed out due to injury.
"We've been knocking at the door in recent years, but didn't quite have the numbers," Moffat said. "In 2006, we missed out on 20 points in that tournament because Braden (Mowry) was hurt. If he would have wrestled, he could have gotten us 20 points."
Coeur d'Alene was also the top-ranked team in the 5A level throughout the season according to IdahoWrestlingNews.com.
"I don't think the kids paid a lot of attention to that," Moffat said. "If there was any pressure on them - the kids wrestled with a lot of confidence and it never seemed like there was any pressure on them throughout the year."
Coeur d'Alene qualified 17 wrestlers to the state tournament, but knew that Highland qualified 22.
"When you get to the tournament, it's one thing to qualify large numbers," Moffat said. "But you need to have quality wrestlers."
Once they took the mat last Friday, each one of the 17 qualifiers had a role in bringing home the state title.
"Each guy contributed," Moffat said. "Alex (Kastens) was our third-string guy at 215 and goes down and places. Our guys stepped it up big time. They fed off each other. It really could have snowballed either direction."
Coeur d'Alene qualified eight wrestlers for the semifinals, with five of them advancing to the finals on Saturday night.
"Our kids learned a lot last year," Moffat said. "Once we got through the semifinals, we knew that we'd done it."
Despite going 0-5 in the finals, Coeur d'Alene knew it had done enough to wrap up its first state wrestling title in school history.
"It was kind of a weird feeling," said junior Kenny Staub, a runner-up at 130. "It was a good/bad feeling. It was nice to win a state title as a team - but losing as an individual didn't feel good. We knew no matter what happened in the finals, we had won."
Junior Johnny Peregrina, who placed second at 160 pounds, added that the team's strong start on Friday added to the team's momentum on Saturday.
"As we were getting pins on Friday," Peregrina said, "it kept the momentum going and helped get us off to a good start."
"We were close last year, so it definitely was good to win it this year," said Staub, who placed fifth his previous two trips to state.
Senior Kevin Moore, who hadn't placed at state in his high school career, closed out his Viking career with a second-place finish at 171 pounds.
"It felt pretty good," Moore said. "Everyone was doing well and we had a lot of pins on the first day to get us going."
Moore missed out on placing at state his first two years, and then had his junior year cut short due to a torn LCL (lateral collateral ligament) last season.
"I wrestled a little bit last year, then got hurt," Moore said. "I didn't think we could be state champions. That's what our goal was - to go undefeated and be state champions."
"It felt pretty good to bring a state title to Cd'A," said Peregrina, who has been competing within the Buzzsaw program since he was 10 years old. "I guess I learned just how strong I was."
Peregrina added that he trains over 10 months out of the year for the sport, including the last seven years within the Buzzsaw program.
"Wrestling within the Greco/freestyle club helps," Peregrina said. "I've done that each year and dedicate a lot of time to it. It was a really good season."
The Vikings are already looking to next year, when seven of their 13 state placers return.
"We're going to be doing a lot of weightlifting in the coming weeks," Moffat said. "We're going to be looking to develop some of the younger kids and put together a competitive lineup for next season."
TROJANS
from B1
Last season, Post Falls led Madison of Rexburg by seven points in the second half of the state semifinal, only to lose to the Bobcats in overtime. The Trojans then lost the next morning to Twin Falls in the third-place game, and came home without a trophy after coming so close to playing for a state title - against a team (Lewiston) they had just beaten a week earlier on its home floor for the Region 1 title. Lewiston then beat Madison for its first state title in 61 years.
"We used it (coming so close) as motivation, because we don't want to have that same feeling that we did when we lost to Madison last year," Marcus Colbert said.
This year, with the four starters back, Post Falls was expected to do well in the 5A Inland Empire League. The Trojans stumbled at home to Lake City in the regional title game, but bounced back to beat Coeur d'Alene for a return ticket to state.
"I'm so proud of my guys," McLean said. "All year, from media up here, coaches up here, people down south in the Boise area, we're supposed to be the team that's going to do everything. That's a lot of pressure to put on a bunch of kids, especially when you have a point guard that turned 16 a couple of weeks ago."
n Notes: Post Falls last won a state title in 1964 ... Vallivue senior forward/post Zach Kelsh (17.9 points, 8.2 rebounds, 2 blocked shots per game) was a starter two years ago when the Falcons defeated Coeur d'Alene in the state title game. ... Borah (14-11), which opens vs. Lake City (13-9) on Thursday at 7 p.m. PST, boasts senior swingman Craig Spjute (22.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 2.5 steals per game), who led the 5A Southern Idaho Conference in scoring this season. His father, also named Craig, made the game-winning basket in Boise High's state championship victory in 1980. ... Eagle (22-1), ranked No. 1 in the state much of the season, was fourth at state last year. The Mustangs' lone loss this season came to Vallivue. Many of the Mustangs were part of Eagle's state title-winning football team last fall, including quarterback Taylor Kelly, who verbally committed to Nevada but wound up signing with Arizona State. ... All state tournament games in the six divisions will be webcast at www.IdahoSports.com. All the 5A, 4A and 3A games will be video webcast; the 2A, 1A Division I and 1A Division II games will be audio only. All six state title games on Saturday from the Idaho Center will be video webcast.
Times PST
Thursday
At the Idaho Center, Nampa
Game 1: Madison (17-7) vs. Centennial (16-7), 12:15 p.m.
Game 2: Vallivue (18-5) vs. Post Falls (19-4), 2 p.m.
Game 3: Eagle (22-1) vs. Rocky Mountain (15-9), 5:15 p.m.
Game 4: Lake City (13-9) vs. Borah (14-11), 7 p.m.
At Borah High, Boise
Game 1: Bishop Kelly (17-6) vs. Jerome (15-11), 12:15 p.m.
Game 2: Moscow (16-6) vs. Rigby (13-12), 2 p.m.
Game 3: Hillcrest (20-3) vs. Skyview (19-4), 5:15 p.m.
Game 4: Twin Falls (21-3) vs. Century (14-11), 7 p.m.
At Meridian High
Game 1: Fruitland (16-6) vs. Salmon (18-5), 12:15 p.m.
Game 2: Snake River (18-4) vs. St. Maries (12-8), 2 p.m.
Game 3: Filer (17-4) vs. Shelley (14-8), 5:15 p.m.
Game 4: Priest River (19-3) vs. Homedale (13-10), 7 p.m.
At Capital High, Boise
Game 1: Glenns Ferry (19-3) vs. West Side (16-4), 12:15 p.m.
Game 2: Firth (18-5) vs. Melba (19-5), 2 p.m.
Game 3: New Plymouth (14-8) vs. West Jefferson (10-13), 5:15 p.m.
Game 4: Kamiah (16-5) vs. Soda Springs (13-8), 7 p.m.
1A Division I
At Vallivue High, Caldwell
Game 1: Castleford (21-1) vs. Kendrick (12-11), 12:15 p.m.
Game 2: Liberty Charter (17-5) vs. Shoshone (21-5), 2 p.m.
Game 3: Prairie (23-1) vs. Cascade (14-7), 5:15 p.m.
Game 4: Raft River (18-6) vs. Troy (19-6), 7 p.m.
Class 1A Division II
At Caldwell High
Game 1: Kootenai (12-9) vs. Dietrich (18-8), 12:15 p.m.
Game 2: Carey (21-2) vs. Mackay (18-2), 2 p.m.
Game 3: North Gem (15-5) vs. Nezperce (17-5), 5:15 p.m.
Game 4: Salmon River (15-7) vs. Murtaugh (17-5), 7 p.m.