By Joey Bennett
Special to the Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
Cleaning out the summer e-mail bag:
• Ledune-Bourgasser honored — The University of Southern Indiana softball team had five players named to the All-Great Lakes Valley Conference team.
One of them was junior centerfielder Reva Ledune-Bourgasser of Sullivan, who was selected to the second team.
LeDune-Bourgasser came on strong for the Eagles in the last month of the season, hitting .351 with three home runs and 12 RBIs in the month of April. She finished the regular season with a .313 batting average with nine doubles, six home runs, and 25 RBIs.
• Richardson to Olney Central — The mass exodus of Wabash Valley area athletes to Olney Central College for next year continued recently as Shakamak grad Tyler Richardson decided to play baseball for OCC.
“It’s been a lifelong dream,” Richardson told the Greene County Daily World. “I’ve always wanted to play college baseball.
“I’ve been in the shadow of T.J. [Hill] for a while, and me and him have always competed and I think that’s why I’m as good as I am now, because we’ve been competing as hard as we have for a while.”
Hill is also a recent Shakamak grad headed to OCC.
• Canary, Nees honored by HCAC — Meghan Canary of South Putnam was recently named to the honorable mention all-Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference team.
Canary, also named academic all-district by the College Sports Information Directors of America, batted .333 with two doubles, 17 runs scored and 13 RBIs. She also committed just six errors at the shortstop position while starting all 30 games as a freshman.
Rose-Hulman finished with a 16-14 record.
Franklin’s Cody Nees, a junior right-handed pitcher from Cloverdale, was first-team all-HCAC in baseball.
Nees was 4-4 overall with three saves, had a 3.06 ERA, and allowed 28 hits and 17 runs (11 earned) with 18 walks and 13 strikeouts in 32 and1⁄3 innings.
• Conference comings and goings — Two small Indiana private colleges are changing their conference affiliations.
DePauw will join the North Coast Athletic Conference effective July 1, 2011, departing the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.
The NCAC includes Allegheny College (Meadville, Pa.), Denison University (Granville, Ohio), Hiram College (Hiram, Ohio), Kenyon College (Gambier, Ohio), Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio), Ohio Wesleyan University (Delaware, Ohio), Wabash College (Crawfordsville), Wittenberg University (Springfield, Ohio) and the College of Wooster (Wooster, Ohio).
Twenty of DePauw’s 21 intercollegiate athletic programs will move to the NCAC effective July 1, 2011, with the exception of football, which already has a schedule in place for the next two seasons, and will enter the NCAC effective July 1, 2012.
The open spot in the conference came as Earlham is moving from the North Coast Athletic Conference to the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference after being invited to join last October.
The addition of Earlham marks the first change in membership for the HCAC since Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology joined the league in 2006. Earlham will be centrally located in the conference that also includes Anderson University, Bluffton University, Defiance College, Franklin College, Hanover College, Manchester College, the College of Mount St. Joseph and Transylvania University.
• Gordon takes over at LTC — Former Lincoln Trail softball standout Ashley Gordon has taken over as the school’s softball coach.
The Palestine native had an excellent two-year career at LTC and completed her career at Tiffin University in Ohio. She replaces Racheal Killinger, who left the school this summer when her husband, Chad, took a job as an assistant women’s basketball coach at Marshall University in West Virginia.
• USI wins national title — Southern Indiana’s ninth-ranked baseball team captured the NCAA Division II championship with a 6-4 win over No. 1 California-San Diego.
USI finished 2010 with a school-record 52-14 overall record, going 13-2 in the post-season.
The victory is the first national title for the USI baseball program and the second national championship for the University. The first team national championship for the Screaming Eagles came in 1995 by the men’s basketball team.
Junior pitcher Taylor Dennis of Covington (via Danville Area Community College) was a key part of USI’s title run.
Dennis was the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Division II Championship Series after both of his starts, allowing just three runs (two earned) and striking out nine in 14 innings of work.
He went 4-0 in the post-season with a 4.26 ERA after tying the single-season school record for wins with a 12-1 overall record.
• Jags honored for academics — Several Wabash Valley area athletes who compete for IUPUI earned academic honors from The Summit League this spring.
The Summit League honored senior softball player Alicia Hayes of Terre Haute North (general studies) and junior soccer player Anna Pigg of Terre Haute South (nursing) on its Commissioner’s List of Academic Excellence, which is for sophomores and above who have cumulative 3.0 GPAs.
Hayes was also named to the Academic All-Summit team (minimum 3.0 GPA in spring semester).
Freshman tennis players Joel Modesitt of West Vigo and Bailey Maryfield of Bloomfield (both pre-law majors) were named as Distinguished Scholars on the Academic All-Summit team (minimum 3.6 GPA in spring semester).
Sophomore volleyball player Kaley Huffman of Northview (sport management) was named a Distinguished Scholar for the fall semester.
Joey Bennett is a former Tribune-Star sports reporter and copy editor who now teaches at Northview High School in Brazil. He can be reached at tribstarcollegereport@yahoo.com.
COLLEGE REPORT AGATE
Signings/verbal commitments
(Members of class of 2010 unless noted otherwise)
Bloomfield
Shelby Gott, softball, Oakland
Elyse Weddle, basketball, Hanover
Cloverdale
Martika Byrd, softball, Lincoln Trail
Linton
Olivia Wells, basketball, St. Mary-of-the-Woods
Local connections
Kelly Meggs (Bellevue, Wash. – former Terre Haute resident), basketball, California-Irvine
Peter Stuart (Brown County – son of Terre Haute native Grant Stuart), baseball, Vincennes
Marshall
Taylor Duncan, football, Eastern Illinois
Gabrielle Kuhn, cross country, Vincennes
North Central
Shelby Higginbottom, track and field, Indiana State
A.J. Boyll, baseball, South Carolina-Beaufort
Bobby Swaby, basketball, Manchester
Ethan Stanifer, basketball, Manchester
Kate Brown, basketball, Olney Central
Megan Stone (’11), softball, Indiana State
Northview
Caleb Mason, baseball, Olney Central
Emily Phillips, softball, Olney Central
Samantha Solomon, track and field, Indiana Tech
Conor Strain, track and field/cross country, Indiana State
Scott Wheeler, football, Kent State
Owen Valley
Faith Jones, golf, St. Mary-of-the-Woods
Michaley Kinser, golf, St. Mary-of-the-Woods
Cody Vest, basketball, Indianapolis
Kaitlin Sweatman, basketball, Missouri-St. Louis
Paris
Zachary Henn, basketball, Parkland
John Dayton, baseball, Lake Land
Riverton Parke
Josh Wilson (’09), basketball, Ancilla
Robinson
Meyers Leonard, basketball, Illinois
Ben Jones, basketball, Lincoln Land
Derek Hannahs, baseball, Ball State
Don Daugherty, football/baseball, Monmouth (Ill.)
Dani Phillippe, softball, Kaskaskia
Sam Murphy, tennis, Kaskaskia
Kasey Redman, softball, Lincoln Trail
Rockville
James Kent, football, Mount Union (Ohio)
Jeffrey Earl, baseball, Pikeville
Beth Mahurin (‘11), basketball/volleyball, Murray State
Lindsay Greene (’11), softball, Illinois State
Shakamak
T.J. Hill, baseball, Olney Central
Marki Collins, basketball, Olney Central
Jared Rehmel, basketball, Southern Indiana (transfer from Central Arkansas)
Casey Fougerousse, basketball, DePauw
Drew Gambill, track and field/cross country, Indiana State
Tyler Richardson, baseball, Olney Central
South Putnam
Krystal Welch, softball, Olney Central
Adam Masters, football, Indiana State
Cam Chestnut, baseball, Lincoln Trail
South Vermillion
Andy Walsh, football, Wabash
Sullivan
Bridget Beard, soccer, Kaskaskia
Alex Smith, football, Franklin
Larry Nero, football, Ohio Wesleyan
John Walker, wrestling, The Citadel
Alisha Lowery, softball, Wabash Valley
Terre Haute North
Danielle Ketner, softball, Indiana State
Chris O’Leary, football, Indiana State
Ben King, football, Indiana State
Logan Valentine, football, Indiana State
Trent Walls, football, Indiana State
Parker Fulkerson, baseball, Holy Cross (Mass.)
Shaun Smith, track and field, Indiana State (transfer from Vincennes)
Ashley Burkins, track and field, Indianapolis
Thomas Anderson, basketball, Olney Central
Francesca McCarthy, basketball, Holy Cross (Ind.)
Sara Baugh, volleyball, U.S. Naval Academy
Bethany Sullivan, softball, IU-Southeast
Bri Hill, volleyball, Rose-Hulman
Justin Gant (’11), basketball, Indiana State
Terre Haute South
Jacob Hayes, baseball, Ohio State
Shelby Crncic, volleyball, Arkansas State
Kelsey Fuqua, golf, St. Mary-of-the-Woods
Bryn Schwartz, football, Indiana State
Kayla Liffick, soccer, Indiana State
Taryn Decker, softball, Lincoln Trail
Macy Toon, softball, Wabash Valley
Lindsey Coons, softball, Rose-Hulman
John Michael Jarvis, basketball, Olney Central
Megan Craft, basketball, Ball State (transfer from Vincennes)
Matt Shaver, swimming, Lindsey Wilson (Ky.)
Tessa Johnson, basketball, Marshall (transfer from Lincoln Trail)
Ike Worrell, basketball, Oakland City
Jacob Tanoos, basketball, Illinois Central
Ian McIntyre, basketball, Illinois Central (transfer from Lincoln Trail)
West Vigo
Tyler Wampler, baseball, Indiana State
Gina Furrey, softball, St. Mary-of-the-Woods
Cecelia Gray, golf, St. Mary-of-the-Woods
White River Valley
Taylor Kail, softball, Butler
Alicia Tally, basketball, Olney Central
Jared Shelton, basketball, IU-Southeast
