Tri-Cities quarterback commits to university team. He’s just a high school junior

Whether we have high school football in the spring or not, Chiawana junior JP Zamora already has his future set.

The 6-4, 185-pound quarterback verbally committed to the University of Utah to play for the Utes in the Pac-12 Conference.

Zamora told 247sports that he felt Utah was the right fit for him.

“I picked Utah because I felt like I’ve known the coaches my whole life already,” he said. “They showed the most interest and made sure everyday that I was a priority. After they offered, I just looked super far into it and as a family we came to a conclusion.”

Zamora led the Riverhawks to the Mid-Columbia Conference regular-season title as a sophomore in 2019, and then into the state 4A playoffs before being eliminated by Mt. Si.

As a sophomore, Zamora’s stats were impressive.

He finished fourth in the MCC in total offense with 2,097 yards.

Among those who qualified with enough passing attempts, Zamora was the top MCC quarterback in efficiency rating at 166.2.

He was 124 for 207 passing for 1,993 yards, 22 touchdown passes against 10 interceptions.

College signings

• Richland High senior Taylor Clark has signed a letter of intent to play softball for Western Washington University.

Clark missed her junior season when COVID-19 shut the season down, but as a sophomore she was named a first-team, All-Mid-Columbia Conference player as a third baseman for the Bombers.

She was also was named second-team all-state that season, and as a freshman Clark was a second-team All-MCC choice at third base.

She tied teammate Addison Pettit — now a freshman playing for Bradley University — for the team lead with six home runs that sophomore year, and Clark’s batting average for the Bombers in that 2019 season was a sizzling .575.

The last couple of years, Clark has been a part of the USA Explosion 18 Gold program.

When she was younger, Clark was being recruited for the Team Seattle U14 team, which was being coached by the University of Washington softball assistant coach JT D’Amico.

But Clark, in fact, verbally committed to the Vikings as a sophomore after she met the WWU team and coaches the winter of that season.

She’ll be joining Western for the 2021-22 season along with Chiawana infielder Lexi Barcomb, who also signed a letter of intent with WWU recently.

• Hanford High senior Cael McMurdo has signed a letter of intent to play baseball for Grays Harbor Community College.

McMurdo, a catcher, carries a 3.67 grade point average.

Grays Harbor coaches are excited to “add solid defensive ability and competitive drive to the program” by adding McMurdo.

College update

• Lewis-Clark State College’s women’s basketball team got a couple of games in last weekend, beating Montana State University-Northern 75-66, before falling 99-49 to highly-ranked Carroll College.

Hermiston High grad Jansen Edmiston, a senior 5-foot-9 guard for LCSC, was named the Cascade Collegiate Conference women’s basketball player of the week on Monday for her efforts in both games.

Edmiston averaged 13.5 points a game in the contests, while grabbed 10 rebounds and getting two steals.

In the win over MSUN, Edmiston scored a game-high 17 points, shooting 7-for-12 from the floor, including 3-for-6 from the 3-point line.

She added 10 more points in the loss to Carroll.

LCSC, which used to play in the Frontier Conference against teams like MSUN and Carroll, begins play this season in the Cascade Collegiate Conference — which moved the start of conference play back to early January.

• Matt Sundling, who spent two seasons with the Columbia Basin College men’s basketball team before signing this past offseason with Presentation College in Aberdeen, S.D., has been seeing limited action on the court as a junior.

Presentation is 3-6 through games of Nov. 28.

Sundling is a 6-foot-6 forward.

• There is one other Presentation athlete with Mid-Columbia ties, and that’s junior Olivia Castellanos for the women’s soccer program.

Castellanos went to high school in Irrigon, Ore., then played two seasons for Blue Mountain Community College before transferring.

Presentation’s women’s soccer team actually played its season this past fall, going 0-12-2.

Notes

• Richland senior lineman Mason Williamson has received two college football offers so far.

A 6-foot-2, 250-pounder who plays on both sides of the line, Williamson has offers from Rocky Mountain College in Montana and William Penn University in Iowa.

• The Tri-City Americans loaned forward Connor Bouchard to the Penticton Vees of the BCHL last month, but the start of the season has been delayed for the Vees.

A player on the Vees tested positive for coronavirus this past weekend, and the team has now gone into a 14-day quarantine.

The start of the BCHL had been delayed until Dec. 7, but Penticton will miss that.

The Western Hockey League is still scheduled to begin play Jan. 8, and players such as Bouchard — and other Americans who have been loaned out — are supposed to report to the Tri-Cities right after Christmas.

• When the NHL’s Calgary Flames get ready for training camp soon, they’re expecting big things from former Tri-City Americans defenseman Juuso Valimaki.

The 22-year-old missed all of last season recovering from surgery on the ACL of his right knee.

But this summer, the Flames loaned him to Tampareen Ilves, Valimaki’s hometown team that plays in the Finland Liiga – the top professional league in Finland.

Valimaki has been nothing short of spectacular, scoring 2 goals and 17 assists in the 19 games he’s played in Finland. That puts him among the league leaders in points with 19.

In the plus-minus rating, Valimaki has an impressive plus-15.

Unfortunately for Seattle Kraken fans, because Valimaki never saw any action last season for the Flames, that makes him unlikely to be available for the Kraken’s expansion draft next year.