Monday, March 25, 2013

PORTLAND, Ore. - Eleven GNAC athletes have earned GNAC Red Lion (@redlionhotels) Player of the Week honors for the Week of Mar. 18-24. 

Among the honorees is Montana State Billings second baseman Aubrey Conceicao, who drove in 12 runs as the Yellowjackets won three of four games.

The honorees included:

Baseball: Player – Joe Castro, Central Washington (OF, 5-8, 160, Jr., Union City, CA) and Austin Rue, MSU Billings (OF, 5-9, 168, Sr., Clancy, MT) ... Castro and Rue led their respective teams in batting as they split a four-game series.  Castro had six hits in 12 at bat, drove in three runs and stole three bases.  He also had three sacrifices.  Rue had seven hits in 17 at bats, scored four runs and drove in two.  Pitcher – Kody Stone, Western Oregon (5-11, 200, Jr., Tacoma, WA – Everett CC) and Willie Davies, Central Washington (6-0, 200, Jr., Shoreline, WA – Shoreline CC) ... Stone retired nine of the 10 hitters he faced in picking up three saves in 3-1, 5-3 and 7-5 victories at Saint Martin’s.  Stone already has seven saves on the season and a 1.64 ERA in 10 appearances.  Davies pitched  5 2/3 innings of scoreless relief in Sunday's opener, allowing just two hits and striking out four as CWU rallied from a 6-2 deficit to beat MSUB 7-6.  The Yellowjackets hit just .100 against him (2 for 20) as he lowered his season ERA to  1.23.  Honorable Mention – Alex Bielaski, Saint Martin’s (OF, 6-0, 215, Jr., Bellevue, WA); Garrett Harpole, Western Oregon (3B, 6-1, 190, So., Elmira, OR).

Softball: Player – Aubrey Conceicao, MSU Billings (2B, 5-3, So., Temecula, CA) and Amanda Evola, Western Oregon (OF, 5-7, So., Beaverton, OR - Westview) ... Conceicao had eight hits in 11 at bats and drove in 12 runs as the Yellowjackets won three of four games.  Among her hits were two singles, three doubles, one triple and two home runs as she posted a monstrous 1.727 slugging average. .. Evola drove in nine runs as the Wolves split four games.  She had seven hits in 15 at bats, including a double and home run.  Pitcher -  Taylor Bakos, Saint Martin’s (P, 5-4, Sr., Kennewick, WA – Kennewick) was 2-0 on the weekend with a 0.58 ERA with wins over Western Washington and Simon Fraser. She tossed her first shutout of the year allowing just three hits in five innings of work with a pair of strikeouts against WWU. On Sunday, she picked up her second win of the weekend to improve to 9-4 with allowing just one run on four hits with five strikeouts and just two walks.   Honorable Mention – Sam Munger, Saint Martin’s (SS, 5-6, So., Everett, WA – Cascade); Maria Gau, Central Washington (P, 5-7, Jr., Woodinville, WA); Mary Grace Bywater, MSU Billings (P, 5-8, So., Tualatin, OR).

Men’s Track & Field:  Track -  Rimar Christie, Northwest Nazarene (Jr., St. Michael, Barbados) won the 100 meters in a time of 10.76 and finished third in the 200 in a time of 22.14 in the Whitworth Buc Scoring Invitational Friday at Spokane.  Both times are GNAC automatic qualifying times this spring and currently rank first and third on the GNAC performance list.  Field – Greyson Kilgore, Northwest Nazarene (Jr., Kuna, ID) finished second in the pole vault at Whitworth with a GNAC season-best vault of 14-5 ¼.  

Women’s Track & Field: Track – Jordan Powell, Northwest Nazarene (Sr., Nampa, ID – Columbia) swept the 5,000 meters (17:59.05) and 10,000 (38:46.47) at Whitworth with conference qualifying times.  Her 5,000 time is an automatic qualifier and currently ranks third in the conference, while her 10K provisional time ranks fourth.  Field – AnnaMarie Forza, Northwest Nazarene (Fr., Enumclaw, WA) finished fourth in the javelin at Spokane with a provisional national qualifying mark of 132-4.  Honorable Mention - Alicia Wolf, Saint Martin’s (So., Bellingham, Wash.).