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

LUNCHEON SCHEDULE: 12/11 Noon: Outback Steakhouse • 1/8: Noon: Outback Steakhouse • 1/29: Noon: Cd’A Resort Shore Room

DECEMBER 2012

NIC first: Three teams hit No. 1 in National Polls / P.2

His idea became reality when the first an-nual Special Needs Basketball Games were hosted by North Idaho College at Christian-son Gym.

Four teams dressed in brightly clad NIC t-shirts were welcomed to the court in true NBA fashion, entering through a fog ma-chine with spot lights, bands playing, crowd applause and a cheerleader escort line! You can’t make up this excitement and emotion.

The basketball games were equally excit-ing, with all athletes cheering for each other after every attempted shot.

The night featured two games, with the younger athletes playing the earlier game and the older athletes playing the nightcap. Regardless of the age group all of the ath-letes were truly involved in the moment,

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We all have Special Needs

Instructor Cal DeHaas has witnessed firsthand the joy expe-rienced by his Special Needs athletes as they participated at half-time of NIC basketball games over the years. This past

month Coach Cal decided to take the excitement a step further.

Coach Cal brings new tradition to NIC

BOARD OFFICERS

PRESIDENT Jon Parson

VICE PRESIDENTRoger Stewart

TREASURERMark Hampe

SECRETARYGinni Lenz / Patty Stewart

BOARD MEMBERS

Robert CliffBrad Miles

Patty StewartSteve CaseyTom Messina

Julie StarkFrank Darlington

Mike O’BrienJon Berger

John MarchesoA.D, Al Williams

(aawilliams@nic.edu)

PHOTOGRAPHSDon Sausser

Jackie McNeel

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 en-dowment activities for student ath-lete grant-in-aid and team benefits. Organized in the 1960s, the Booster

Club supports all NIC recognized in-tercollegiate athletics as a lifelong learning experience that will enhance the value of sportsmanship and pro-vide a positive experience for stu-dent 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 pro-grams. The Booster Club holds vari-ous fund-raising events throughout the year including an annual auction, awards banquet, 3-on-3 basketball tournament, and golf tournament. It also sponsors a booth each year at the North Idaho Fair and operates a con-cession stand at all home events.

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

A word from the Athletic Director

AL WILLIAMS

IT’S CARDNIVAL TIMEThe second Annual Winter CARDnival & Auc-

tion hosted by the NIC Booster Club is right around the corner on December 6 at the CDA Inn- Best Western Plus. The evening features games you can play to earn prices or raffle tickets for a chance to win your favorite items at the auction. Prizes include resort golf packages, Gonzaga/WSU/EWU men’s basketball tickets, Florida resort golf vacation, res-taurant certificates, helicopter rides, gourmet dinners prepared by AD Al Williams and Chef Dave Adlard, wine baskets, athletic apparel, quality gift items, and a chance to win $1,000 in gold coins if your key item opens the special lock. Special thanks to iShoutOut.com and Panhandle State Bank for their cash donations to the event, and all the many donors for your items. This is the most unique auction in the area and a great place to get your holiday gifts while helping support the NIC athletics department. Get your tickets now for a really fun evening!

NIC MAKES RANKING HISTORYFor the first time in the illustrious history of NIC

athletics, our sports programs have earned a top ranking in 3 sports in the same season. Women’s Basketball reached the No. 1 spot in the current NJCAA polls, joining Wrestling and Volleyball. Congratulations to Coach Carlson and his staff, off to a 7-0 start against stiff competition, and hoping to repeat their 2011 national championship run. Wres-tling has their sight set on the same goal to earn their first title since 2003. Volleyball placed 8th in the na-tion earlier this month, earning their 3rd consecutive top 10 national finish.

There is still time for more national recognition with men’s golf currently ranked No. 10, and men’s basketball ascending the polls at No. 21 after a 8-1 start. Women’s golf is currently ranked No. 17 and softball appears ready for another exciting season. Don’t forget to renew your Booster Club member-ships. Our Booster Club elevates our program to new heights! Thanks for your continued support!

REGION 18BASKETBALL

TOURNAMENTHOSTED BY NIC

FEB 28 - MAR 2Booster Club members get FIRST CHOICE on

tournament seat selections.

Renew your membership by Dec. 31 to cash in on your

Idaho Tax Benefits!

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DATE EVENT TIME

Nov. 30 - Dec. 2 Bigfoot/Cardinal Classic - Check websites for dates/times

Nov. 30 W. Basketball vs C.C. of Spokane 5:30 p.m.

Dec. 01 W. Basketball vs North Idaho College All-Stars 3:30 p.m.

Dec. 07 Wrestling vs Northwest College (Wyo.) 7:30 p.m.

Dec. 08 Wrestling vs Clackamas College Noon

Dec. 08 Wrestling vs Southwest Oregon College 2:00 p.m.

Dec. 14-15 TRI-STATE HS Wrestling Tournament All Day

Dec. 20 W. Basketball vs North Idaho All-Stars 5:30 p.m.

DATE EVENT TIME

Dec. 21 M. Basketball vs Portland Community College 7:30 p.m.

Dec. 27-29 CD’A INNvitational HS Basketball Tournament All Day

Dec. 28 M. Basketball vs Treasure Valley C.C. 8:00 p.m.

Jan. 17 W. Basketball vs USU - Eastern Utah 5:30 p.m.

Jan. 17 M. Basketball vs USU - Eastern Utah 7:30 p.m.

Jan. 19 W. Basketball vs Colorado Northwestern C.C. 3:00 p.m.

Jan. 19 M. Basketball vs Colorado Northwestern C.C. 5:00 p.m.

Jan. 31 Wrestling vs Simon Fraser University 7:30 p.m.

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

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encouraged by their volunteer coaches who were NIC athletes or host parents of the basketball program.

When the special needs athletes had a little difficulty scoring there were some tall helping hands willing to as-sist…some NIC basketball players standing close to seven feet or taller!

Special thanks to Coach Cal, the cheerleaders and band from Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene High Schools, the Lake City H.S. Stomp Band and all the volunteers that helped make this truly a magical, memorable evening.

The back of the shirts of all the Special Needs athletes said “We Shall Overcome.”

Anyone watching the joy in the faces of these athletes during these games will agree that truer words were never spoken!

Merry Christmas and GO Cards! Our Winter CARDnival looks like one

of our largest fundraisers of the year. This event is full of fun and activities for all ages and types. If you don’t have your ticket, please contact the Athletic Depart-ment. Please join us and bring a friend. It truly is a great time.

A big thanks goes out to Patty Stewart, our very own Athletics Coordinator for all the work she (and her family) put in to make this such a successful event.

Another special thanks should go to our host of the facility, Mike O’Brien, General Manager of the Coeur d’Alene

Inn-Best Western Plus, and all the donors, coaches, athletes, and bidders that make this event extraordi-nary. So, come bid, eat, bid some more, play, and oh...bid some more at our NIC Winter CARDnival.

The holiday seasons are here and we are deep into Winter Sports. We are so fortunate to have the sup-port of such a great com-munity. Please make sure you make it to a game or match and bring a friend-show-

ing them the excitement of Cardinal Pride. A big Con-grats goes out to Candice and her Volleyball team’s 8th place finish at NJCAA nationals. Although the Men’s & Women’s Soc-cer programs didn’t fin-ish where they had hoped, they represented us well.

Wrestling and both Bas-ketball teams are looking very good to have top fin-

ishes this year. Please come down and see some Cardinal action. Happy Holidays!

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

JON PARSON

WRESTLINGWe are currently ranked No. 1 in the

NJCAA, with 9 of the 10 wrestlers ranked in the top 8 nationally.

Ranked No. 1 in their weight classes are Brock Banta (125), Ryan Zumwalt (157), and Kyle Sweedman (174).

Mike Rodreguez is ranked No. 2 at 133. Both Jarrett Morrill and Caleb Rivera are ranked No. 4 at 141 and 184, respec-tively. Jake Mason is ranked No. 5 at 165, joined by Bryan Smith ranked No. 6 at HWT and V.J. Gulio ranked No. 8 at 197.

Currently our re-cord is 3-1, with our lone loss coming to the University of Great Falls, 17-15 on October 27th.

The weekend of Nov 30 to Dec 1 we are scheduled to compete in the Cliff Keen Invitational in Las Vegas. We will be one of the only non-Division I schools in the tournament. We will see how we stack up against the likes of University of Michi-gan, Ohio State, Cornell, and Oregon State, just to name a few.

The following weekend we return home to finish out the semester on December 7th and 8th against Northwest College, South-west Oregon, and Clackamas College.

Please come out and support your No. 1 ranked Cardinals.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALLThe Lady Cardinals have proven them-

selves road warriors starting the season with a 7-0 record including five tough wins on the road.

Our first game was at home against the talented North Idaho All-Stars. We really appreciate the work Lindsay Herbert puts into organizing and coaching this team with the intent to give us a great challenge and push us to improve.

Our first trip was to Williston, N. Dak., where we beat Williston State College and Northwest College. We stopped in Glen-

dive, Mont., on the way home and beat Dawson Community College. We then played an exciting double header with the men against Columbia Basin Community College.

Over Thanksgiving we took our latest trip traveling all the way to Sheridan, Wyo., to take on then 11th ranked Gillette Col-lege and the home team, Sheridan Col-lege.

All of our games have been against very solid com-petition and have helped us to move forward in antici-pation of our tough Scenic West Ath-letic Conference. Games have proven that we do have the depth we anticipated during preseason practices with many dif-ferent players stepping up and making an impact in games.

Our current focus is to continue build-ing our team chemistry and to finish off the semester at an academically high level. We’d like to thank everyone who sponsored a player in our annual freethrow fundraiser. Without your support we would not be able to maintain our program at this level.

You are greatly appreciated.

MEN’S BASKETBALLThe Men’s Basketball team is off to a

great start to the season. The Cardinals are sitting at 8-1 and ranked No. 21 in the na-tion after playing 6 of their first 8 games on the road.

The Cardinals are proving to be very balanced with sev-eral players averag-ing double figures in points, includ-ing Mike Middle-brooks (11.3 ppg, 10.1 rebounds per game), Kaj Sher-man (10.0 ppg, 8.1 rpg), Mikey Hope

(13.7 ppg), Keon Lewis (12.0 ppg) and Jalil Abdul-Bassit (10.9 ppg).

As the season progresses we expect sev-eral of the Cardinals to be heavily recruited, but James Webb III has already found a future home. Webb, a 6’9 freshman swing-man (10 ppg) has signed a letter of intent to play at Boise State University next season and will only compete one year at NIC.

The Cardinals’ most impressive win on the young season came in an 86-81 victory at the defending Arizona Region 1 champ Arizona Western College. The Cardinals win is the only one for an opponent on Arizona Western’s court to this point in the season.

The SWAC conference is looking as dominate as ever with Southern Idaho, Snow and Salt Lake all spending time ranked or receiving votes in the NJCAA top 25 polls as well. The Cardinals also hope to get a boost with the possible return of guard Cole Luckett, who is coming back from a serious season-ending knee injury suffered last season.

VOLLEYBALLNo. 7 NIC wraps up the 2012 season

with an 8th place finish at the NJCAA Divi-sion 1 National Volleyball Tournament in West Plains, Missouri and a 26-8 record for the season. NIC won the first match at Na-tionals which put them in the top half of the bracket. Yang Yang was one out of twelve players to make the NJCAA Division 1 All-Tournament Team.

NIC opened with Hutchinson Com-munity College and won in three solid games. Yang led with 16 kills and 10 digs while Kaitlyn Molloy added 10 kills and four blocks. Rosie Robinson led with 13 digs while Brooklynn Bradbury led with 18 assists and three aces.

In the second round, they then matched up against No. 4 Western Nebraska Community College, a team we previ-ously defeated during preseason in four games. NIC lost in four close games this time around. Yang led with 16 kills, 10 digs and five blocks. Molloy led digs with 14. Bradbury added 18 assists.

The Lady Cards played Central Florida in round three. Central Florida defeated

Coaches’ Reports

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JARED PHAYMEN’S BASKETBALL

PAT WHITCOMBWRESTLING

CHRIS CARLSONWOMEN’S BASKETBALL

NIC in the first round of play last year at Nationals and NIC beat them in a tough five-game match during this year’s pre-season. Central Florida pulled out a win in three over the Cardinals. Yang once again led with 18 kills, 15 digs and four blocks. Robinson led the match with 22 digs. Bradbury led with 14 assists. With this loss, it put the Cardinal’s in a spot to fight for a 7th or an 8th place finish.

NIC ended the National Tourna-ment playing Hill-s b o r o u g h C o m -m u n i t y C o l l e g e where the College of Southern Idaho came to cheer on their Regional Ri-vals . Yang once again led with 20 kills, four blocks and 21 digs. Allison

Meehan led with 19 assists while Robinson led the match with three aces and 23 digs.

The Cardinals finished with a 1-3 re-cord at the National Tournament, however they won the crucial first game. After the Cardinals finished, they went to the store and bought black and yellow face paint to cheer on the College of Southern Idaho who played for its 10th National title.

“It really showed a lot of class and char-acter when our teams cheered for each other during the National Tournament,” said Kandice Gregorak. “The team’s chant-ed ‘Idaho’ throughout the gym whether it was NIC or CSI playing. After CSI won the National title, the CSI bus came to pick up our team at our hotel at 11:15 PM to head to the local movie theater in West Plains because they appreciated our support so much.”

Overall, it was a wonderful year and we were so excited to be going to Nation-als. There are a lot of good teams left be-hind but these girls fought hard to get there. The girls are wonderful and have worked so hard for this and wanted it so badly which showed against SLCC at the Regional Tour-nament. I had so much fun with this group this year. Through the year, we definitely had our ups and downs but this just shows

how tough of a group these kids are. Every player on this team now knows what it takes to hold on to the No. 1 spot in the Nation, which NIC once was ranked after a 16-0 preseason finish. Now it is time to get some good recruits in to join the large freshman class.

Yang, 1st Team All-Conference and on the All-Tournament Team at Regionals, was unstoppable at Nationals and also deserved to be on the NJCAA Division 1 All-Tourna-ment team.

WOMEN’S SOCCERWhere do I start, with the past or the fu-

ture? The future of NIC’s women’s soccer team is built upon the past and maybe even more than normal for next year’s team. We’ll have 9 players returning who started more than 4 games this year. We have 3 players who “red-shirted” this season who will have a whole year of experience in our system and who will be hungry to play in regular season games. In total, we’ll have 14 players who should be returning and ready to make a difference next year.

These p layers gained experience in a rather tough season which saw us struggle (and at times it was a real struggle) to a very s u c c e s s f u l s e a -son with 9 wins, 4 losses and 2 ties. Our final loss came agains t Laramie County CC on their home field in the Region/District C

Tournament. We have struggled against LCCC on their home field, but this is a situation we need to learn to deal with as we’ll have to travel to the Region/District C Tournament location until we get more Scenic West Athletic Conference schools to add a women’s soccer team.

With that being said, the future is bright because we have so many players who have already experienced playing far away from their home field at an elevation that gives the home team a decided advantage (all

the cities of schools in Region 9 are at an elevation considerably higher than Coeur d’Alene).

The returning players have learned they cannot relax too much after scoring an early goal as it is tough to “flip the switch” and regain the energy they had when they scored.

We had a successful year and we will miss the sophomores who had great expec-tations themselves, but we are looking for-ward to working hard this winter and spring to develop the team capable of going to the national tournament!

Go CARDINALS

MEN’S SOCCERCardinal Men’s Soccer qualified for the

playoffs on the last day of the season in a 2-0 win against UI’s club team with goals by Eliseo Santana and Louis Williams.

After finishing the regular season 6-6-3, the men traveled to Rock Springs, Wyo., to play West-ern Wyoming for the right to go to na-tionals. After some poor clearances, the Cardinals found themselves down 0-2 early and 0-3 at the half. Regardless, the team continued to press and created several dangerous

opportunities in the second half. Early on, Riley Martin found himself free with the ball inside the penalty area but took one too many touches. John Ray and Lucas Zirot-ti were both able to find Ruben Amezcua for short range shots to no avail. With 26 minutes to go, Ray turned the corner at the endline and found Zirotti who converted to bring the Cardinals within 3-1, but Western Wyoming goalkeeper Mitch Jensen contin-ued to protect the Mustangs’ goal through-out the game.

Chad Ward, the Cardinals’ leading scor-er in 2011, had a solid year at Montana State Billings as did Michael Leptich at Corban University in Salem, Ore.

Senior Brandon Wood earned Honor-

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Coaches’ Reports

KANDICE KELLYVOLLEYBALL

KEN THOMPSONMEN’S SOCCER

DAN HOGANWOMEN’S SOCCER

Winter CARDnival and Auction

The North Idaho College Booster Club presents

Thursday, Dec. 6 5:30 p.m. Social hour, games, fun, and silent auction begins 6:45 p.m. Dinner 7:15 p.m. Silent auction tables begin to close 7:45 p.m. Live auction

Best Western–Coeur d’Alene Inn 506 W. Appleway, Coeur d’Alene

Call Patty Stewart at 769-3348 for reservations

Tickets $30 or table of eight for $225

able Mention for Evergreen State College in the Cascade Collegiate Conference.

Four current Cardinals are exploring their options for 2013 and beyond with Santana, Kyle Hammond, Justin Johnson, and Amezcua all enjoying some interest from four year programs.

With the competitive season over, the Cardinal coaching staff is shifting gears into recruiting and is expecting three to four commitments in December and hopes to have the 2013 roster fully formed by late March.

Spring training will begin on February 1st, but until then the team is focused on performing in the classroom and recuperat-ing from a taxing season.

SOFTBALLThe team has settled into our winter

training and is focusing their attention on finishing strong in the classroom for the fall

semester. We are just around the corner to starting our first official day of practice on January 10th and preparing for the 2013 season.

Coach Craig and I have been recruiting aggressively for the 2014 team.

Our signing date is Jan. 15th. We have several offers out and we have 6 verbal commit-ments for the 2014 team already.

We will wrap up recruiting for this semester with six visits on the calen-dar for December.

We are looking to rebuild next year due to graduation of 7 starters next spring.

Happy Holidays to everyone.

GOLFThe golf teams are heading into their off-

season training and do not play again until the middle of March.

Both the men and women have been fo-cusing on strength and conditioning over the past few weeks as well as making sure to fin-ish off the semester strong in the class-room.

The men head into the offseason ranked No. 1 in District 1 as well as No. 10 in the National Coaches Poll. This is the first time the team has been ranked inside of the top 10 in the National poll. Three of the men took advantage of

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Coaches’ Reports

DERRICK THOMPSONGOLF

DON DON WILLIAMSSOFTBALL

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DAWN SMITHCHEERLEADING

the NCAA early signing period for golf and inked their letters of intent for next season.

Taylor Reed will be attending Nich-olls State University, a Division I school in Thibodaux, La.

Dylan Morrison signed with The Uni-versity of Charleston, a Division II school in Charleston, W. Va, and Austin Westphal chose to sign with Montana State Univer-sity – Billings a Division II school.

The men and women hope to continue their solid play this Spring and again reach their goal of qualifying for the National Championships.

Both teams start off the Spring season at

the Montana State University-Billings Invi-tational March 15th and 16th.

CHEERLEADINGThe Cardinal cheerleaders had a very

busy November with volleyball coming to an end, and the basketball season just get-ting started.

They also held a kids camp earlier in the month. Kids from the camp learned stunts, dance and a cheer. They also had a fun craft station making Pon poms. Everything was put together in a mini routine at the end of the day camp.

They got to perform at half time of the

Cardinal men’s bas-ketball game against the Gonzaga men’s c lub t eam. The money raised will go towards the up-coming trip to UCA College Nationals in January

They will have their first exhibition performance De-

cember 15 at a Cheerleading competition in Spokane. Until then they will continue pre-paring their routine for Orlando, Fla.