Tri-Cities soccer star considered one of best female college athletes in the U.S.

Southridge High School graduate Brianna Hunting is up for a prestigious NCAA award.

Hunting completed her senior season for the Pacific Lutheran University women’s soccer team last fall, and now she’s PLU’s nominee for the 2019-20 NCAA Woman of the Year Award.

Rooted in Title IX and directed by the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics, the NCAA Woman of the Year program celebrates the accomplishments of female college athletes across all three NCAA divisions.

Hunting was the 2019 Northwest Conference Defensive Player of the Year, and is a three-time All-Conference selection.

She was named All-West Region in 2018 and was named Scholar All-West Region in 2019. Hunting played in all but one game over the past three seasons, helping the Lute defense rack up 43 shutouts in that span.

She also helped PLU win four straight conference titles and make three NCAA Division III Tournament appearances. She closed her career with a 62-10-12 record on the field, including a 42-5-7 record in league play.

Her list of accomplishments is long: a two-time team captain, Hunting is a member of Chi Alpha Sigma, is a Fellowship of Christian Athletes leader, and is a lead tutor for the kinesiology department.

She also was involved with the Kinesiologists of the Future Club, PLU Youth Clinic, Lutes Lead, and PLU Winterfest.

She volunteered educating elders at the Tacoma Health Fair, volunteered with the Sexual Assault Resource Center and was a team manager for the soccer team. Hunting graduated with a degree in kinesiology.

The NCAA Woman of the Year Award honors graduating female college student-athletes who have completed their eligibility and have distinguished themselves in academics, athletics, service and leadership.

In August, the Northwest Conference Woman of the Year will be announced with the national winners announced at the NCAA Headquarters in Indianapolis in late October.

Nachbaur will coach in Switzerland

Don Nachbaur and his wife still keep a home in the Tri-Cities, but that doesn’t mean he lives in it much.

Nachbaur bought the home when he was hired to coach the Tri-City Americans years ago. That was many stops ago on his coaching career — which included at one point a stint as an assistant coach for the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings.

Back in the spring of 2019, Nachbaur was home in the Tri-Cities after he had been fired by the Kings, and he was doing radio color commentary with play-by-play standout Craig West during the Americans’ short Western Hockey League playoff run.

Nachbaur had lamented at the time that it was the first time in years he had been in a hockey locker room.

But hockey is in his blood, and sooner or later another opportunity comes along.

In the middle of this past season, Nachabaur got the chance to step in as head coach at HKM Zvalen, a team in the Slovak League.

That led to another opportunity a month ago, when he was signed to a two-year deal to be the head coach at SC Bern of Switzerland’s National League.

Hartley Miller, a sports commentator in Prince George, British Columbia (where Nachbaur is from) counts the number of teams Nachbaur has either played for or coached for to be 18, and that’s in five different countries.

Wrestling notes

• Grandview High grad Desiree Zavala was named an NAIA All-American this year while competing for Wayland Baptist. Zavala, who wrestles at 136 pounds, had also been a wrestler at Grays Harbor Community College.

• Chiawana’s Isaiah Anderson is being recruited by Oregon State. Anderson, who will be a junior this fall, has won two state titles for the Riverhawks at 195 pounds.

• According to Twitter site GranbyRoller, there are four Mid-Columbia men wrestlers who will continue this winter at the college level: Chiawana grad Colby Blaisdel is headed to Umpqua Community College in Oregon; Pasco’s Isaiah Gonzalez will be at Cal Baptist; Kennewick’s Emilio Ramos is headed to Arizona Christian University; and Chiawana’s Tyson Stover will wrestle for Corban University

• GrandbyRoller also has eight area women wrestlers listed who are heading to the next level: Kamiakin’s Aliyah Draisey, Sarah Hamilton and Brendon Rios — plus Othello’s Kaitlyn Goodman — are all headed to Big Bend Community College; Walla Walla’s Nayeli Flores and Sunnyside’s Luli Torres will both compete at Eastern Oregon University; Othello’s Emily Mendez is headed to Adrian College in Michigan; and Hanford’s Grace Nelson will compete for Corban University.

Notes

• CBC sophomore Denzel Brantley, who led the 8-20 Hawks men’s basketball team this past year in scoring at 12.0 points a game, is headed to The Evergreen State College in Lacey.

Brantley also averaged 2.1 assists a game for CBC.

He’ll be joined at Evergreen by CBC teammate Mikey Hernandez, who was the Hawks’ second-leading scorer at 11.9 points a game, and also the team’s leader in assists at 2.2 a game, and third in rebounds at 4.5 a contest.

Brantley and Hernandez are two of four CBC men’s basketball players who have signed letters of intent to continue on to four-year schools to play basketball.

Grayson Nelson is headed to Montana Western, and Matt Sundling will continue on to Presentation College in Aberdeen, S.D.

New head coach Anthony Owens has a number of new players coming in, thanks to some strong recruiting by interim head coach Bryan Edwards. Among those recruited are Southridge’s Tristan Smith, Hanford’s Connor Woodward (by way of Green River CC), Richland’s Cody Sanderson (by way of Central Washington University), River View’s Tyler Bussell, and Pasco’s Nick Gutierrez and Ethan Legard.

• A couple of additional four-year school signings by CBC athletes include Pasco High grad Bella Gutierrez, who will head north and play women’s basketball at Prairie College in Canada; and women’s soccer player Rebecca Wheeler, who will continue on at Westminster College in Utah.

• Linfield sophomore Maggie Fiocchi, a Kennewick High graduate who plays women’s tennis, was 4-1 in singles play and 5-2 in doubles play for the Wildcats this spring before the season was stopped.

Linfield’s team had a 6-2 record.

• Richland High grad Emily Garza made 11 appearances this season as a pinch-runner for South Carolina Upstate. Garza scored four runs for the women’s softball team, which was 17-7 when the pandemic stopped play.