East Coast coach to lead CBC women’s basketball in fall 2021

Columbia Basin College has named Amy Sokaitis as its new women’s basketball head coach starting this fall.

Sokaitis has coached seven seasons at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, sporting a record of 88-72. Before that, she was an assistant coach at Southern Connecticut State University and Yale.

Sokaitis will take over for interim head coach Jonathan Kimsey, who stepped in to run the team when Roosevelt Smith left the program earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the current Hawks are 3-5 through games of May 10, with two wins over Blue Mountain, and the other over Yakima Valley.

Sami Sanders (Southridge) leads the team in scoring at 11.3 points and rebounds at 5.6; while Aaliyah Anderson (River View/Walla Walla University) is second with 9.7 points and 4.7 rebounds. She also averages 1.9 steals a game.

Other standouts so far include Aislin Fiander (Kennewick), with 8.5 points and 1.8 assists; SaLee Westermeyer (Kamiakin) with 4.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 1.6 steals; Alyssa Agundis (Chiawana) with 1.8 assists and 2.4 steals; and Britney Guerrero (Mabton) with 1.6 steals.

Notes

▪ Kennewick’s Jillian Hui fired even-par rounds of 72 and 72 to win the girls 14-18 title May 1-2 at the Washington Junior Golf Association’s 2021 Eastern Open tournament at Veteran’s Memorial in Walla Walla.

▪ Kamiakin senior Braden Swaney will be competing for the Northwest Nazarene University men’s track and field team next spring, after he signed a letter of intent.

▪ Fifth-year senior Jansen Edmiston (Hermiston) was named to the prestigious CoSIDA Academic All-District team recently.

Edmiston, a standout for the Lewis-Clark State College women’s basketball team, carries a 3.95 grade-point average while majoring in both Business Administration and Psychology, while minoring in Spanish.

▪ Lewis-Clark State College’s baseball team beat Corban 6-1 on Sunday to win the Cascade Collegiate College tournament, earning another berth to the upcoming NAIA World Series, set for May 28 to June 4 in Lewiston.

In Sunday’s title game, Kennewick High grad Trent Sellers picked up the win, going 5 innings, scattering 2 hits, surrendering no runs, and striking out 6 batters. For his efforts, Sellers was named CCC pitcher of the week on Monday.

The Warriors are an impressive 41-4 this season, and Kennewick grad Dillon Plew is a big part of the team’s offense.

Plew is hitting .335, with 9 home runs and 58 RBIs this season. He was named first-team All-CCC at third base, and was voted to the conference’s Gold Glove team too.

Sellers, a starter, is 6-1 this season with a 3.66 earned run average. Opposing batters are hitting just .222 off of him, and he’s struck out 70 batters in 51.2 innings.

▪ Outfielder Jayden Ault, who graduated from Hanford and is now at CBC, will be playing this summer in the Cascade Collegiate League. So will his CBC teammate, right-handed pitcher Josh Ruffner.

▪ Oklahoma State senior Alex Garcia (Othello) is batting .242, with three home runs and 20 RBIs this season for the 27-15-1 Cowboys baseball team.

▪ Richland senior Carter Sheets has signed a letter of intent to play men’s golf for Saint Martin’s University beginning in the fall.

▪ Scorebook Live Washington named its top high school softball middle infielders in the state recently, and two area athlete are among the honorable mentions.

Kennewick senior Amaya Davis and Kamiakin senior Hannah Jablonski were mentioned.

Jablonski has already signed a letter of intent to play for the University of Montana next spring.

▪ Hermiston senior Paige Palzinski will be at the University of Idaho this coming fall, where she’ll be on the women’s track and field team in the throws.

▪ Middle blocker Hannah Hair (Walla Walla) and outside hitter Lindsay Rosenthal (Richland) have helped lead the Seattle Pacific.University volleyball team to a 10-5 record this spring with three matches remaining, all against Western Washington University this coming weekend.

Hair is No. 1 on the team with 78 blocks, and second on the squad with 140 kills.

Rosenthal is tops on the team with 146 digs. She also has 64 kills.

▪ Former unlimited hydroplane owner Fran Muncey will be inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame America on Sept. 28 in Detroit.

Muncey is the widow of legendary unlimited driver and owner Bill Muncey, who died in a racing accident in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1981.

Before he died, he had made Fran promise that if anything ever happened to him, she’d keep the race team going.

Her teams, mainly the Miller American and the Circus Circus, won 24 races — including seven consecutive Gold Cups from 1981-88.

▪ Kennewick senior wide receiver Max Mayer has received his second scholarship offer to play football, the latest from Ottawa University Arizona. Mayer’s first is from Whitworth.

▪ Senior Alyssa Radke of Connell was named the SCAC volleyball player of the year last month, while Connell’s Patty Brandt was named coach of the year.

Players named to the first team include Kiona-Benton junior Elyzza Gonzales, Connell senior Ashley Walker, College Place sophomore Zoe Hardy, and College Place senior Madilyn Neil.

Players named second team include Kiona-Benton senior Sara Fernandez, Connell senior Emma Andrewjeski, Connell senior Jill Benson, College Place sophomore Wren Dawson, and College Place senior Cali Long.

▪ Chiawana senior forward Alia Khoyi is set to play for the Saint Martin’s women’s soccer team, starting this fall, after signing a letter of intent.

▪ Idaho’s football team has three tentative non-league games this coming fall before then getting into the Big Sky Conference schedule: Sept. 4, hosting Simon Fraser University; Sept. 11, at Indiana; and Sept. 18, at Oregon State.