Booster Club NewsN O R T H I D A H O C O L L E G E

LUNCHEON SCHEDULE: 2/9: Noon: Outback Steakhouse • 2/28: Noon: Cd'A Resor t• 3/8: Noon: Emery's at NIC

FEBRUARY 2016

V O L L E Y B A L L F I N I S H E S 1 0 T H I N F I N A L N J C A A S E A S O N / P g . 3

Chasing History

NIC has fielded a men’s basketball team since the school’s inception in 1933, but the most accurate team records have only been tracked since 1961, when NIC became a member of the NJCAA under the leadership of legendary head coach and athletic direc-tor Rolly Williams. Since this period, the best team record in school history is the 1965-66 season, when the Cardinals posted a mark of 26-2-1! Yes a tie! North Idaho Junior Col-lege, as it was called then, was playing the Washington State University Frosh team in a game before the WSU Varsity was scheduled to play a Pac-8 contest. After one overtime period still resulted in a tie, the WSU admin-istration decided 62-62 was a good finish and NIJC left P u l l m a n with the only tie on record in school his-tory! That year’s team also had the longest win streak in history prior to this season (24), but it included that tie during the streak! Coincidentally the second best start in school history belonged to the 1978-79 team which included current NIC Athletic Director Al Williams. That team started 21-1 and was ranked as high as No. 5 in the NJCAA polls (before fading down the stretch and finishing

26-6!). No team in SWAC history has ever gone undefeated, and two losses in the fewest amongst conference rivals in modern history.

The current edition of the Cardinals is a high scoring unselfish group, with a strong

emphasis on defense and an up-tempo offense. During the early season schedule the team had a stretch of five consecutive games of over 100 points, a school re-cord. The all-time highest team scoring output of 138 points was nearly reached during the holiday

Bigfoot Cardinal Classic when the Cardinals destroyed Grays Harbor

College 135-75. The previous mark was set in the 1987-88 season against

East Kootenay Community College (Cran-brook, BC) 138-58.

Sophomore 6’6 guard Braian Angola-Rodas and swingman Bryan (BJ) Blake, 6'7, lead the balanced Cardinal line-up.

The duo lead the SWAC in scor-ing, with identical 22.7 point per game averages. Those numbers

are also good enough for 10th in the nation. The Cardinals have ex-

perience in the starting line-up with fellow sophomores, including 6’8 power forward Kyle Guice, 6’7 wing Kaleb War-ner, and 6’3 point guard Lucas Antunez. The Cardinals have won the Scenic West Athletic

T he No. 3 ranked North Idaho College men’s basket-ball team is in the midst of the best start in school history. With a record of 25-0 overall and 10-0 in the

Scenic West Athletic Conference, the 2015-16 team is not only chasing school records but also Region 18/SWAC records.

Conference three times in the past 10 seasons, but the NJCAA national tournament berth has been elusive. The Cardinals have not been to the NJCAA tournament in Hutchinson, KS since the 1996-97 season under Head Coach Hugh Watson, when the Cardinals finished 4th in the nation.

There is still a long way to go to the reach the team goal of earning a bid to the NJCAA national tournament, but chasing history is fun along the way! Follow the webcast of all men and women basketball game on www.nic.edu/athletics and enjoy the ride!

pire District Basketball tour-nament for the regional high schools. The games will be February 8 and 10 for the girls, and February 22 and 24 for the boys. It’s a great place to watch regional teams right here in your backyard!

NIC HOOPS WATCH PARTY:BUFFALO WILD WINGS

When you can’t make the games when the Cardinal bas-ketball teams are travelling, the next best thing is to join your fellow Cardinal fans at Buffalo Wild Wings in Coeur d’Alene for a live broadcast of the games.

BWW displays the games on the big screen so you can dine out and leave the cooking to them in a family friendly environ-ment. Listen to the voice of the Cardinals Dick Haugen for a live stream using the NIC webcast! It’s the next best thing to being there.

The Region 18 basketball tournament this year is at Twin Falls, ID, hosted by College of Southern Idaho, February 25-27. Plan on a drive as the road to the NJCAA na-tional tournament begins there!

MEN’S BASKETBALL DISTRICT PLAYOFF SCHEDULENOTE: Save the Date. If the men’s team wins

the Region 18 Championship they will host the West District Championship against the Arizona Region champ at NIC’s Christianson Gymnasium on March 5th, time TBD. We will need all of the Cardinal fans present for the automatic bid to the NJCAA national tournament! Stay tuned!

BOARD OFFICERS

PRESIDENT Jon Parson

VICE PRESIDENTRoger Stewart

TREASURERMark Hampe

SECRETARYRann Haight

BOARD MEMBERS

Robert CliffTom Messina

Frank DarlingtonPatty StewartRich Dussell

JJ JaegerAl Williams (ex-officio)

aawilliams@nic.edu

PHOTOGRAPHSTom Greene

CONTACTPatty: 208-769-3348

P.O. Box 492Coeur d’Alene, ID 83816patty_stewart@nic.edu

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The North Idaho College Booster Club is a nonprofit organization, committed to providing financial support to all recognized intercol-legiate athletic programs at NIC through various fund-raising and endowment activities for student athlete grant-in-aid and team ben-efits. Organized in the 1960s, the

Booster Club supports all NIC rec-ognized intercollegiate athletics as a lifelong learning experience that will enhance the value of sportsmanship and provide a positive experience for student athletes, students, and fans. The club also recognizes the commit-ment our athletes make to the young people of our community through

our athletic Cardinal Kids outreach programs. The Booster Club holds various fund-raising events through-out the year including an annual auction, awards banquet, 3-on-3 bas-ketball tournament, and golf tourna-ments. It also co-sponsors the Coeur d’Alene Crossing and operates a concession stand at all home events.

M I S S I O N S T A T E M E N T

Welcome back to the Spring semester and the home stretch for Winter sports seasons. All of our teams either hosted or par-ticipated in holiday tournaments so there was little down time over the semester break. The Tri-State high school Wrestling tournament was held on the NIC campus for the 42nd year, bring-ing over 60 high school pro-grams to NIC. Men’s basketball hosted the Coeur d’Alene INN-vitational and won the tourna-ment in exciting fashion, despite missing the anticipated show-down with traditional power San Jose City College, upset by Highline College in the semi-finals. Women’s bas-ketball won the Lower Columbia College Holiday tournament in dominating fashion, winning by an average of 29 points per game. The Wrestling team returned from the holiday break prepared to make a run for the national championship, but instead got struck by the injury bug! The starting lineup was so depleted by injuries that the team was unable to compete in the highly competitive Apodaca Duals in Powell, WY and also had to cancel the Sophomore Night Match against Simon Fraser University. The goal now is to get ready for the West District tour-nament in Des Moines, WA, and qualify as many wrestlers for the national tournament in Council Bluffs, IA on February 26-27. All three NIC winter teams are ranked in the NJCAA polls. The goal is the NJCAA national tournament for all!

The 13th annual Statewide High School All-Star Game is coming soon! The best high school senior basketball players in the state will be com-ing to North Idaho College on March 12, 2016! The state is loaded with NCAA Division I prospects for both the boys and the girls. Don’t miss the action!

NIC will also be hosting the 4A Inland Em-

Tradition of Excellence

Athletic Director Al Williams

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DATE TIME EVENT

Feb. 6 3:00 p.m. W. BASKETBALL vs College of Southern Idaho

Feb. 6 5:00 p.m. M. BASKETBALL vs College of Southern Idaho

Feb. 18 5:30 p.m. W. BASKETBALL vs Salt Lake Community College

Feb. 18 7:30 p.m. M. BASKETBALL vs Salt Lake Community College

DATE TIME EVENT

Feb. 20 3:00 p.m. W. BASKETBALL vs Snow College

Feb. 20 5:00 p.m. M. BASKETBALL vs Snow College

Mar. 5 TBD M. BASKETBALL District Championship (Tentative)

Mar. 12 1 & 3:30 p.m. High School Basketball All-Star Games

N I C C A R D I N A L S H O M E E V E N T S C H E D U L E

NJCAA WRESTLING NATIONAL RANKINGS1 Northeastern Oklahoma A&M 2 Ellsworth (IA)3 Muskegon (MI)4 Iowa Central 5 Iowa Western 6 Clackamas (WA)7 Iowa Lakes 8 NORTH IDAHO COLLEGE9 North Iowa Area 10 Niagara County (NY)

NJCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL RANKINGS1 Trinity Valley (TX)2 Georgia Highlands 3 NORTH IDAHO COLLEGE4 Gillette (WY)5 Northwest Florida State 6 Indian Hills (IA)7 Harcum (PA)8 Connors State (OK)9 John A. Logan (IL)10 Iowa Western

NJCAA WOMEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL RANKINGS1 Trinity Valley (TX)2 Gulf Coast State (FL)3 Daytona State (FL)4 Salt Lake (UT)5 Shelton State (AL)6 Southern Idaho 7 Chipola (FL)8 Hutchinson (KS)9 New Mexico 10 Midland (TX)23 NORTH IDAHO COLLEGE

In their final season in the NJCAA before joining the NWAC, the NIC volleyball team had a primary goal before the season- Reach the NJCAA National Tournament! This is probably the desired goal of every NJCAA volleyball team at the start of the season, but with over 100 NJCAA Division I schools competing for only 16 spots, and a confer-ence with two programs ranked in the top 10 the entire season, the odds are against you. So much for the odds! The 2015 NIC vol-leyball team reached the NJCAA volleyball tournament and finished 10th in the Nation!

To accomplish this feat, NIC put to-gether a season where they defeated the #1 team in the nation, Southern Idaho, on their home court to build momentum to start off the conference season. They utilized that confidence to defeat the #6 ranked team in the nation, Salt Lake Community College, in the playoffs in straight sets to earn an automatic bid to nationals! At the national tournament the Cardinals were seeded 10th. They lost the first match in 5 tough games to #7 Missouri State- West Plains. The Car-dinals bounced back to defeat both Yavapai (AZ) and Hill College (TX) by identical 3-1

scores to advance to the game for 9th place against Hutchinson (KS). In another classic match-up, the Cards again lost in 5 games, but they battled back to force a game 5 with a tremendous rally in game 4 after being down 2-1. The Cardinals lost first team all-region outside hitter Brenna Meehan to an ankle in-jury in game 4, but fought hard and were tied at 9-9 before losing the finale to Hutchinson 15-11. Still the Cardinals earned their 6th top 10 finish at the NJCAA tournament!

The 2015 Cardinal volleyball season brings an end to the best run in school his-tory. Prior to 2004 NIC had never reached the NJCAA volleyball national tournament. In the past 11 years the Cardinals reached the tournament 8 times: 2004, 2006- 4th place, 2008, 2010, 2011- 5th place, 2012, 2013, and 2015. Remarkably, this success was achieved with six different head coaches: Bret Taylor, Chris Kosty, Colleen Frohlich, Kandice (Kelly) Gregorak, Miles Kydd, and current head coach Kelsey Stanley.

Next season NIC will begin a new chapter in the Northwest Athletic Conference! The competition will change but the desire to win remains the same… Stay tuned!

Volleyball Finishes 10th

MEN’S BASKETBALLSince we hadn’t had a newsletter for a

few weeks I thought it might be good to give a season recap to date! Hard work and team chemistry has led the 3rd-ranked NIC Men’s Basketball team to a 25-0 record, 10-0 in the Scenic West Athletic Conference, the best start in school history.

The Cardinals started the season with a home victory November 6 over Sheridan College be-fore embarking on a tough road trip to Yuma, Arizona. The Cards would pile up three victories in three days against NJCAA quality Arizona schools, including nationally ranked Arizona Western. Continuing our No-vember non-conference schedule, we picked up three more wins on the road before re-turning home with a 7-0 record to face Green River. After knocking off the Gators 95-68, we took on some of the toughest teams in the Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC) in winning the Bigfoot-Cardinal Classic. The

NIC would open SWAC play December 12th at home with a 20-point victory over CSI and the following Thursday on the road against USU-Eastern, wrapping up a five-game stretch where we would score at least 100 points, a feat never before accomplished by a Cardinal team.

The Cards would continue their undefeated play by winning the Coeur d’Alene INN-vi-tational to end the year. We started 2016 on a high note, the same way we ended 2015, with victories over Snow and #21 Salt Lake and then CSI on the road, before returning home with victories against Colorado Northwestern and Utah State University-Eastern.

The critical road trip to Utah at the end of January to Salt Lake CC and Snow resulted in the most exciting shooting swing of the season. The Cards hit 6 clutch three pointers down the stretch to battle back from a 14 point deficit at #16 ranked SLCC, to send the Bru-ins to a stunning defeat on their home court. SLCC was only one game back in the SWAC standings at the time. Unlike the SLCC game when the Cards couldn’t buy a 3 pointer in the

first half, against Snow College the Cardinals hit 10 three-pointers in the first half and took a 27 point lead at halftime to earn a tough road victory. With the win the Cards have a 3-game lead in the SWAC standings over CSI and SLCC.

There’s plenty of exciting SWAC Basket-ball action remaining in February with several keep home games. I hope you come out and watch this group of fine young men perform. You won’t be disappointed.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALLThe Lady Cardinals are having a very strong

season and still remain in the hunt for a trip to nationals in March! We are currently 17-6 overall and 5-5 in the SWAC. In December we won both the Bellevue Bulldog Classic at Bel-levue College as well as the Lower Columbia College Holiday Classic. Monica Landdeck was named MVP at the first tournament with Stormee Van Belle earning all-tournament rec-ognition. Shelby Cloninger won MVP honors at the LCC Holiday Classic while Maci Bene-dict and Stormee Van Belle were named to the all-tournament team.

We are currently ranked #23 in the na-tion and despite our league record we still feel we have a team that can compete for the region champion-ship. In SWAC play we have two losses to a Salt Lake Com-munity College team once ranked #1 in the nation, and twice to #7 ranked College of Southern Idaho. Two close losses to CSI (87-83 in double overtime & 72-70) and a solid three out of four quarters by our illness stricken squad against SLCC at home show that we are right there for a contending spot in the Region and realistically a top fifteen team in the nation. We finished the second round of SWAC play after defeating Utah State Uni-versity-Eastern on January 23 at home, and losing two tough games at SLCC on January 18 and Snow College on January 20. The final five league games will determine quite a bit in league playoff seedings and we still haven’t played our best basketball.

The Lady Cardinals had another great se-mester in the classroom and are on pace for the tenth NJCAA Academic All-American Team honor in the past twelve seasons. The team is led academically by sophomore Maci Benedict who currently maintains a perfect 4.0 GPA!

WRESTLINGThe second half of the Wrestling season is

quickly coming to a close. The Cardinals lost a tough hard-fought battle with NAIA No. 10 ranked University of Great Falls 26-20.

NIC is still battling through a injury rid-dled 2015-2016 wrestling season but still just about knocked off the Argos of Helena, Mon-tana. One of the key highlights of the match was watching No. 2 ranked Deondre Wilson (141-lbs) continue his comeback from an ACL injury he suffered last season. Deondre picked up a technical fall win with an 18-3 score and looked pretty impressive.

Weather got the best of the scheduled trip to Highline, and with the closure of the Snoqualmie Pass the match was cancelled. The Cardinals faced a tough weekend swing with a depleted roster, losing to Southwest-ern Oregon (31-14) and Clackamas (39-12). Several wrestlers competed at the Clackamas Open with Wilson winning the title at 141 and Dajour Reece plac-ing second. Unfortunately several wrestlers suffered injuries during the trip and scheduled matches against Simon Fraser and duals match-es in Powell, Wyoming at the Apodaca Duals also had to be cancelled due to the inability to field a competitive healthy roster.

The Cardinals will attempt to get as healthy as possible to compete in the West District tournament hosted by Highline College in Des Moines, WA on February 13.

The NJCAA national tournament will be held at a new venue on February 26-27. Coun-cil Bluffs, Iowa will host the event for the next three seasons. You can follow the results of both District and National tournaments on the NIC website at www.nic.edu/athletics.

Coaches’ Reports

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CHRIS CARLSON

COREY SYMONS

PAT WHITCOMB

VOLLEYBALLNIC volleyball team is back in action

with spring ball having started at the end of January. The ladies took two months off to recover from the NJCAA National

tournament and to focus on finishing strong with their fall classes. We are excited to get back on the court and start working on in-dividual skills and getting back into shape.

The Volleyball team is starting their 2nd Annual pajama

drive this month for children who are vic-tims of domestic violence. Last year the la-

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Coaches’ Reports

KELSEY STANLEY

Go Cardinals!

Good Luck NIC

Athletes!

Washington State University Athletic Direc-tor Bill Moos will be the guest speaker at the NIC Booster Club Luncheon at noon on April 19 at the Cd'A Resort. Mark your calendar!

dies donated over 200 pairs of pajamas to the Post Falls Police Department. This year we are shooting for over 300 sets!

If you would like to donate pajamas please contact, Kelsey Stanley or bring them by the NIC Christianson Gymnasium. (Reminder: they cannot be used pajamas.) Any sizes are appreciated.

Cardinals will have two spring tourna-ments this year: March 4th against Lewis Clark State College on our home court, time TBD and March 19th at Gonzaga Univer-sity starting at 8:00am. Hope to see you all there!

Recruitment for next year is well under-way. We are excited to announce that we will be returning seven athletes from last year’s roster and look forward to adding new Cardinals to our 2016 roster.

GO CARDINALS!

Bill Moos to Speak at Booster Club Luncheon

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T he NIC Wrestling team was instru-mental in bringing holiday cheer and reading delight to elementary schools

in the Coeur d’Alene community in Decem-ber. In little more than a month before Christ-mas, 26,148 books were donated to Jingle Books — a holiday program focused on end-ing childhood illiteracy in Coeur d’Alene. Jingle Books coordinator Dave Eubanks asked the NIC Wrestling team and other Jingle

Books volunteers to assist in delivering books to each of the school district’s 10 elementary schools. Thanks to community donations, kindergartners through third-graders in the Coeur d’Alene School District each received up to six books to keep and enjoy over the holiday break.

The NIC Wrestling team also sponsors their own reading program, the Shirley Parker Reading program, which has been deliver-

ing reading books to first graders in the com-munities for over 10 years! They issued their 15,000th book this fall!

The NIC Athletics programs understand that if you can read you can achieve, and the foundation for reading begins at an early age. Congratulations and special thanks to the vol-unteers that created these wonderful reading programs, and kudos to the NIC Wrestling team for helping to make reading fun!

Wrestling Team HelpsDeliver Jingle Books

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NIC Women's Basketball team wins the Bellevue College Invitational over the holiday break in Bellevue, Wash.

Champions!

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