Concordia adding softball home games; Diversion program for Wambach; UP’s Butkovska, Northwestern’s Larner win tennis honors

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Concordia University is going ahead with plans to have home games in softball, starting next year.

The NCAA Division II school will reconfigure Hilken Community Stadium on campus to add softball to baseball and soccer played on the artificial turf.

The current baseball dirt mound will be replaced with a portable turf mound, and Concordia will buy an outfield fence for softball. The softball Cavaliers will use the current dugouts, scoreboards, concessions and other amenities.

The Cavs have played home games at Delta Park and elsewhere. Their next games are scheduled for there at 1 p.m. Wednesday — a doubleheader with league foe Saint Martin’s.

A few games still might have to be played off campus, school officials said, because of possible conflicts in the 2017 Great Northwest Athletic Conference schedules already approved for baseball and softball.

The Cavs are 24-17 overall and 9-7 in the GNAC this season under coach Carrie Kosderka-Farrell.

WAMBACH GETS DIVERSION

Former U.S. soccer star Abby Wambach will be enrolled in a diversion program after pleading guilty Tuesday to DUI.

Wambach, 35, was arrested April 2 in downtown Portland. Her plea in Multnomah County Circuit Court sends her to a program available to first-time offenders and gives her the opportunity to have charges dismissed within a year, following drug and alcohol counseling.

COLLEGE TENNIS

Lucia Butkovska of the University of Portland is the West Coast Conference women’s singles player of the week, after knocking off the Nos. 2 and 119 players in the country in a 3-0 week.

The senior from Bratislava, Slovakia beat No. 2-ranked Luisa Stefani 6-2, 6-3 in a 4-2 UP loss to ninth-ranked Pepperdine.

Butkovska then won 6-2, 6-4 over Jessica Perez of Loyola Marymount, leading the Pilots to a 3-0 team victory.

And Butkovska downed No. 19 Nuria Ruiz of Ormeno of Coloardo 6-2, 3-6, 6-2, as Portland won 4-0.

She is 11-2 in dual singles this spring, including 5-1 in the WCC and 3-0 against ranked opponents.

She has moved up to No. 60 in the national rankings.

• Former Jesuit High star Erin Larner, now at Northwestern, has been named Big Ten women’s tennis athlete of the week.

Larner is ranked 82nd in the nation in singles with an 11-5 dual record this season, including 7-0 in conference.

The 5-9 sophomore led the Wildcats to home wins over Purdue and Indiana last weekend.

Against Purdue, she and Jillian Rooney won at No. 3 doubles in a tiebreaker 7-6 (4), which gave Northwestern the doubles point. She then won at No. 1 singles 7-6 (3), 6-0.

Then, versus 68th-ranked Indiana, she and Rooney won at No. 3 doubles 6-2 and beat 90th-ranked Paula Gutierrez at No. 1 singles, 7-6 (3), 6-0.

Northwestern is 7-0 in the Big Ten, 9-8 overall.

Larner was ITA Midwest Region rookie of the year in 2014-15, along with being named Big Ten freshman of the year after tying for the team lead in wins (29). She moved up from No. 4 singles to No. 2 last season, going 29-12 overall.

HONORS FOR OSU WRESTLING

Oregon State’s wrestling program picked up a couple of honors, with Jim Zalesky named the Pac-12 wrestling coach of the year and sophomore All-American heavyweight Amarveer Dhesi chosen as the conference’s wrestler of the year.

Zalesky has won the award five times in a row and in six of the past seven seasons. His Beavers were 21st at the NCAA championships in 2016, after winning their fifth straight Pac-12 title and going 11-6 overall.

Dhesi was 32-5 overall and took fifth at the NCAA championships. He is the seventh Beaver to win the conference award, and the first since Les Gutches in 1996.