Tri-Cities racer is highest placing woman in history of prestigious Nashville event

The Frontier Conference recently released its spring football schedule.

The conference’s teams will each only play seven league games, and it looks like many Mid-Columbian residents will be cheering for Eastern Oregon University in LaGrande.

The Mountaineers open play at home against Montana Tech on Feb. 27, and will finish the season April 10 at home against the College of Idaho.

In between, there are 15 — count ‘em, 15 — players from this area on the EOU football roster:

Southridge grad Michael Bibe (DB, redshirt sophomore), who is a transfer from Rocky Mountain College; Chiawana’s Nelson Cardenas (DL, redshirt freshman), Kennewick High grad Blaine Chavez (DB, freshman), Prosser High grad Dawson Frakes (DL, redshirt freshman), Hermiston’s Joey Gutierrez (DB, redshirt freshman), Connell High grad Tony Hermann (DL, freshman), Hermiston’s Andrew James (QB, redshirt freshman); Liberty Christian grad John Lesser (RB, redshirt junior), Southridge grad Brycen Kelly (DB, redshirt sophomore), Kennewick High grad Moses McAninch (LB, redshirt sophomore), Southridge grad Flynn McPheron (long snapper, redshirt squad), Richland grads Josh Mendoza (DB, redshirt sophomore) and Ryan Piper (LB, redshirt freshman), Kennewick High grad Cedric Riel (WR, redshirt freshman), and Tri-Cities Prep grad Leo Schroeder (OL, redshirt freshman).

• Walla Walla senior quarterback Ryan Martuscelli has gotten his first offer to play college football next year: from the University of Puget Sound.

Martuscelli passed for 1,509 yards last season for the Blue Devils, with 15 touchdown passes against just 6 interceptions.

He ranked seventh in the Mid-Columbia Conference in total offense in 2019.

Motorsports

Kennewick’s Brittney Zamora finished 11th out of 34 drivers in Sunday’s All-American 400 in Nashville, Tenn.

It was the highest placing for a female driver in the history of the prestigious event. In fact, Zamora was only the fifth female driver to compete in the event.

Driving for Willie Allen Racing, Zamora had a rough start in practice sessions with oil leaks. Then she finished 28th in qualifying when her car had an electrical miss. The crew found that the distributor cap had broken off.

But when it came to the actual race, Zamora was golden.

She steadily worked her way up the ladder. At one point in the race, Zamora had fallen a lap back.

But Zamora kept working her way back to the main lap, and when a caution came out late in the race, she had made it back to the lead group in the field.

It’s a great 2020 finish for Zamora, 21, who:

• Competed against some of the best Super Late Model drivers in the Midwest and South (and basically, the country);

• Took on a high-banking, different track in Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway;

• And adjusted to a new car she wasn’t used to driving.

Running

No one in this region who has seen Allie Janke run needs to be told she’s really good.

The senior out of North Central High School of Spokane has won two WIAA girls 3A state cross country championships over at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco.

She’ll be favored to win a third title in the spring (now that cross country has been moved).

Janke also is a state track champion, with titles in both the 1600 and 3200 meters.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she recently committed to compete collegiately for the University of Arkansas, which has one of the top cross country and track and field programs in the nation.

Janke told Ryan Collingwood of the Spokesman Review that she just fell in love with the college town of Fayetteville, Ark.

“I really liked the town,” Janke said. “The running trails were pretty. Washington is a pretty nice place to run. My expectations are pretty high.”

Janke picked Arkansas over Illinois, Michigan State, Utah, and the University of Washington.

Hockey

• Former Tri-City American defenseman Juuso Valimaki has been off to a blazing start in the Finland Liiga.

Valimaki is the property of the NHL’s Calgary Flames. He didn’t play a game during the 2019-20 season because of a torn ACL suffered during summer training in 2019.

Loaning him to Tampereen Ilves, nearby by his home in Finland, allows Valimaki to knock off some rust before the NHL season begins again, according to the Calgary Sun.

Valimaki is expected to see plenty of playing time this coming season for the Flames.

Meanwhile, in Ilves’ first seven games (5-2 record), the 22-year-old Valimaki leads his team in scoring, with two goals and six assists.

He’s also getting plenty of work, averaging 22 minutes and 46 seconds of ice time on average through those seven contests.

• The Tri-City Americans have loaned three of their players to the Grand Prairie Storm of the Alberta Junior Hockey League.

All of them are forwards — Paycen Bjorklund, Edge Lambert and Sasha Mutala.

With the Western Hockey League not scheduled to begin play until Jan. 8, WHL league officials and team governors gave the OK for players to get some ice time, temporarily, with a Junior A, Junior B or U-18 level team until it’s time to report to their respective WHL team camps right after Christmas.

Both Lambert and Bjorklund are from the Grand Prairie area, while Mutala is from the Vancouver, British Columbia, area.

Mutala was drafted in the fifth round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft by the Colorado Avalanche.

Golf

The professionals beat the amateurs at the 72nd Hudson Cup on Oct. 22-23 at Meadow Springs Country Club in Richland.

The Hudson Cup is a Ryder Cup-style competition, matching the Pacific Northwest’s top 10 PGA members against the top 10 Pacific Northwest amateurs.

Competitors play three rounds: Foursomes, Four-Ball, and Singles.

The professionals won this year, beating the amateurs 13.5 to 6.5.

One of the professionals was assistant Brady Sharp of Wine Valley Golf Club in Walla Walla. Sharp went 2-0-1 in the competition.