Community college tournaments moved from Everett to Portland after coronavirus outbreak

Northwest Athletic Conference officials will try to hold the men’s and women’s championship basketball tournaments a second time, beginning Thursday.

The tournament was originally held last week in Everett on the Everett Community College campus.

The women’s tournament with 16 teams was to run for two days, March 5 and 6, before the men’s 16 teams played on March 7 and 8.

The original plan had the remaining four women’s teams and four men’s teams returning the following weekend — this weekend — to play the semifinals on Saturday, and the finals on Sunday.

But the women’s tournament was stopped three games into the schedule on March 5 when an Everett CC student came down with COVID-19 symptoms.

The rest of the four-day tournament was suspended until the NWAC could come up with a solution.

That solution is moving both tournaments to Oregon.

The men will play all four days at Clackamas Community College beginning Thursday and running through Sunday.

The women’s tournament, which is down to 13 teams from the original 16 because of those three games played last week (both tournaments are single-elimination format), will be held Thursday and Friday at Linn-Benton Community College. The semifinals and final will be moved over to Clackamas on Saturday and Sunday.

As for the teams in the tournament, the Mid-Columbia has just two players on any of the men’s players: Connell grad Nick Hopkins is a sophomore playing for Wenatchee Valley, and Sunnyside grad Trey Sanchez is a sophomore for Yakima Valley.

There are seven locals listed on women’s teams.

Liberty Christian grad Maddie Godwin helped Wenatchee Valley defeat Tacoma CC 70-48 last week. Kiona-Benton grad Maloree Calzadillas is on the Tacoma roster, although she has been sidelined with an injury.

Lane Community College has Richland High grad Hailey Stevens on its roster, while YVC has Sunnyside grad Lexie Skyles.

And Walla Walla CC’s women has three local players in Prosser’s Marissa Cortes, Sunnyside Christian grad Sailor Liefke, and Touchet grad Caitlin McGreevy.

• The NWAC released its all-region teams for men’s and women’s basketball last week, and Walla Walla Community College dominated the women’s East Region team.

Sailor Liefke was named East MVP.

Teammate and sophomore Holly Golenor was named first-team, while sophomore Jessica Cheney was a second teamer.

So was Prosser High School graduate Marissa Cortes, who was also named East Region Freshman of the Year.

Columbia Basin College sophomore Ali Martineau (a Columbia-Burbank grad) was also named to the second team.

Cortes, Martineau and WWCC’s DeeAnn White were named to the all-defensive unit.

Finally, WWCC’s Bobbi Hazeltine was named East Region Coach of the Year.

• On the men’s side, Wenatchee Valley sophomore Malik Parsons was the East Region MVP.

Walla Walla CC’s Jander Cline was named to the region’s first-team unit, and he was also named East Region Freshman of the Year.

Cline’s teammate, freshman Jake Poulton, was named to the second team.

Yakima Valley Community College sophomore Trey Sanchez, a Sunnyside grad, was named to the second team.

Hockey stars

Congratulations to the Tri-City Junior Americans Rep A teams, both U-14 and U-18, for winning their respective Pacific Northwest Amateur Hockey Association state tournaments this past weekend in the Tri-Cities.

The U-18 Junior Ams defeated Seattle SnoKing 2-0 in Sunday’s championship game to take the Tier II state title.

The U-14 Junior Ams beat the Rangers of Vancouver, Wash., 8-1 to wrap up the Tier II state title on Sunday.

Both teams advance to the USA Hockey nationals, which run April 2-6.

The U-18’s will play in Irvine, Calif., while the U-14’s head to Kalamazoo, Mich.

Prep notes

• Kamiakin senior Stanford Smith, who finished third at the WIAA state 3A boys cross country meet in Pasco in November, will run track and cross country starting this fall at Gonzaga University.

• Kamiakin junior running back Tuna Altahir is starting to get football scholarship offers — four so far. Eastern Washington University, Georgetown University, Montana and Montana State had offered him scholarships.

Altahir will definitely get more offers.

• Senior middle infielder Marlee Martin of Southridge has signed a letter of intent to play softball next year at Arizona Christian Uniiversity.

College notes

• Chiawana graduate and soccer star Summer Yates, who is a sophomore at the University of Washington, had a great tournament for the Team USA Under-20 women’s squad in the 2020 Concacaf Women’s U-20 Championships in Santo Domingo of the Dominican Republic.

Yates scored three goals and had four assists for the United States, which defeated Mexico 4-1 in the tournament’s title match on March 8.

• Southridge grad Ellie Smith had a respectable regular season for the 18-12 Idaho State women’s basketball team. Smith, a 6-foot-2 redshirt sophomore, started all 30 games so far this season (the Bengals are in the Big Sky Conference tournament right now), averaging 5.6 points and 4.1 rebounds.

• Damen Thacker (Walla Walla CC) scored 11 points to help the Idaho men’s basketball team beat EWU 74-71 on Feb. 13.

• Darbi Pink (Chiawana) had a team-high 18 points, but it wasn’t enough as Warner Pacific’s women’s basketball team lost 78-65 to Corban on Feb. 14.

• Eric Towsley (CBC) went 1-for-2 and scored the game-clinching run as East Central University of Oklahoma beat Southwestern Oklahoma 2-1 in a baseball game Feb. 15.

• Clare Eubanks (Chiawana) scored 10 points and grabbed 9 rebounds to help lead the Northwest Nazarene women’s basketball team over Concordia of Portland 74-52 on Feb. 20.

• Symone Brown (Kamiakin) went 2-for-2 from the 3-point line for 6 points, in just 7 minutes of play, as the Central Washington University women’s basketball team beat Concordia of Portland 82-45 on Feb. 22.