Northwest Notes April 8, 2011

NIC softball team returns home

to face

Snow today

COEUR d'ALENE - The North Idaho Cardinals return to Scenic West Athletic Conference softball play this afternoon as they host Snow College in a 1 p.m. doubleheader at Memorial Field.

NIC (23-19, 16-15 SWAC) beat Snow three times in three meetings in Ephraim, Utah, in February. A fourth game was canceled due to weather.

Snow (12-14, 12-14) trails NIC for fourth place by 2 1/2 games and is coming off a four-game sweep of Colorado Northwestern in Rangely, Colo., on March 25-26.

Snow is third in the conference in hitting (.356).

The teams will conclude the weekend series Saturday with a doubleheader at noon.

Replacement for ex-Idaho coach named at

MSU Billings

BILLINGS, Mont. - Montana State Billings has named former point guard Jamie Stevens the head coach of the men's basketball team.

Stevens comes to MSU Billings after three seasons at Central Wyoming College, where he revived a program that had been idle for nearly two decades and saw his teams post a 53-39 record.

Stevens is a native of Grants Pass, Ore., and played basketball for the Yellowjackets from 1994-99. He holds team records for single game assists (16), career assists (805) and career steals (167) and helped the 1996-97 team to the NCAA Division II "Sweet 16."

Stevens was an assistant at Colorado School of Mines for six seasons before taking the Central Wyoming job.

Stevens takes over for George Pfeiffer, whose contract wasn't renewed. Pfeiffer, who previously coached at Idaho and Lewis-Clark State College, posted a 33-45 record over three seasons, including an 8-18 mark this winter.

Gonzaga's Vandersloot

invited to

WNBA Draft

BRISTOL, Conn. - Gonzaga senior point guard Courtney Vandersloot is one of 15 players invited to the Monday's WNBA Draft, which will be conducted at ESPN's headquarters.

ESPN will show the first round beginning at noon PDT. ESPNU and NBA TV will broadcast the second and third rounds.

Vandersloot, the 2011 Nancy Lieberman Award winner as the top point guard in Division I and the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award winner, led the nation in assists per game (10.2) for the second year in a row and broke the NCAA single-season assist record with 367. She is also the first NCAA Division I player, male or female, to amass career totals of 2,000 points and 1,000 assists.

Former Bulldog Vivian Frieson was the first Gonzaga player drafted by the WNBA, selected 31st by the Tulsa Shock.

Also among the 15 prospects invited to this year's WNBA Draft is Connecticut forward Maya Moore, Stanford guard Jeanette Pohlen, Stanford forward Kayla Pedersen and North Carolina forward Jessica Breland.

The Minnesota Lynx hold the first and fourth picks of the draft. The Tulsa Shock have the second pick, the Chicago Sun will pick third, the Los Angeles Sparks fifth.

San Antonio picks sixth, followed by Tulsa, Atlanta, Indiana, New York, Washington and, with the 12th and last pick of the first round, 2010 WNBA champion Seattle.