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| Photo by Kirk Hirota |
Whitworth wins all-sports trophy
Whitworth Athletics hauled home some serious hardware in 2007-08, the capper being the Northwest Conference McIlroy-Lewis All-Sports trophy, which recognizes the best all-around athletics program in the conference. Whitworth won the trophy for the second time in four years after earning NWC titles in football, men's soccer, men's swimming, women's swimming, men's basketball, and men's track & field (a whopping one-third of the 18 total championships awarded by the nine-member conference). The Pirates finished second in women's soccer, women's tennis, women's golf and men's golf.
According to the all-sports trophy tally, the Pirates earned 253 points, followed by Linfield (234) and two-time defending champion Puget Sound (221). For the complete list of NWC team points, visit www.nwcsports.com/information/allsports.htm.
"Winning the trophy makes it clear that Whitworth has a bunch of good coaches leading programs made up of terrific student-athletes," says Director of Athletics Scott McQuilkin, '84. "To have achieved such success in one of the best Division III conferences in the country testifies to how talented our teams were this year."
Talent, hard work and drive led the men's and women's soccer programs to the second round of the NCAA playoffs, men's basketball to the Division III Sweet 16, women's swimming to 10th place in the NCAA championships, and men's track to a third-place finish at nationals. Five Whitworth coaches were honored by their peers as NWC coaches of the year: John Tully (football), Sean Bushéy (men's and women's soccer) Jim Hayford (men's basketball), Steve Schadt, '96 (swimming), and Toby Schwarz (track & field) received the conference honor.
Numerous Whitworth student-athletes were named all-conference, all-region, or all-America honorees for athletics and academics. Standouts who won all-America or NWC Athlete of the Year awards include Jael Hagerott, '08 (women's soccer), Jay Tully, '08 (football), Ryan Symes, '08 (pictured, men's basketball), Samantha Kephart, '08, and Natalie Turner, '10 (swimming), and Ben Spaun, '08, Emmanuel Bofa, '10, and Cody Stelzer, '10 (track & field).
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