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Lake Tahoe’s one and only curling club is extending its welcome mat this July. Lake Tahoe Epic Curling is hosting two learn-to-curl sessions for those interested in giving this fast-growing Olympic sport a try.

At one of the top junior college programs in the country, baseball comes second to academics. Western Nevada College in Carson City once again made the National Junior College Athletic Association’s list of All-Academic Teams for the 2013-14 school year.

Wildcats coach D.J. Whittemore said that players learn before they arrive at WNC that their academic success is more important than what they accomplish on the diamond.

Not only did the Western Nevada College softball team make strides on the field to finish fourth in the 2014 Region 18 softball tournament in May, the Wildcats outscored their conference foes in a more important area: the classroom.

WNC led three Scenic West Athletic Conference softball teams, making the grade for the 2013-14 National Junior College Athletic Association’s All-Academic Teams announced on Tuesday.

Growing up only a half-hour away from Seattle in Maple Valley, Wash., the Seattle Mariners have always been Taylor Smart’s baseball team.

The former Western Nevada College infielder’s boyhood dream of one day playing for the Mariners became closer to reality on Saturday when the Mariners selected Smart in the 26th round of the Major League Baseball draft.

No one is ever going to call Conor Harber a one-dimension player. Two straight All-American honors and two different paths to the award certainly highlight the Western Nevada College baseball player’s versatility.

Harber became the first Wildcat to earn back-to-back All-American honors when the National Junior College Athletic Association named the sophomore pitcher to the third team earlier this week.

One of the great mysteries of sports is the amateur baseball draft. With the largest pool of players under consideration for draft selection than any other major sport and ball players being scouted from a variety different levels, there is plenty of uncertainty to go around.

Even with a 40-round format, many outstanding players go unselected by a Major League Baseball team. However, a draft hasn’t gone by without at least one Western Nevada College player being selected since the Carson City baseball program formed in 2006.

Work ethic, determination, commitment and effort are just some of the qualities that contribute to the Western Nevada College baseball team’s success. That the Wildcats are still playing when many junior college teams have packed away their equipment and uniforms is a product of a program designed to make the players successful.

“It’s a testament to the work ethic of the players, a testament to the culture established by previous teams and the quality of the position coaches that are developing the players,” said WNC coach D.J. Whittemore. “We go into every game expecting to win.”

The Western Nevada College Wildcats took on Scenic West’s topped-rank Salt Lake Community College Bruins Saturday at the Region XVIII tournament. Salt Lake earned home-field advantage and the right to be the home team as the number one seed in the conference. Christian Stolo started on the mound for the Wildcats of Carson City.

The Carson High School Baseball team had hosted a senior night of their own earlier tonight. The festivities took place before the game, which highlighted all of the seniors. This year’s class of 2014 ball players include: Dustin Dutcher, Dominic Norton, Chase Blueberg, Todd Thomsen, Jace Zampirro, Gehrig Tucker, and Charles Nystrom.

The rivalry was real in this one, with the umpire talking to both benches multiple times and even an ejection of one of the coaches.

Getting the best of College of Southern Nevada has become the norm for the Western Nevada College baseball team in 2014. That trend continued at the Region 18 baseball tournament on Thursday as the Wildcats withstood a late rally by the Coyotes for a 10-6 victory in Salt Lake City.

Heather Septon won’t ever forget her sophomore appreciation day at Western Nevada College. Septon slugged two home runs and knocked in seven runs as the Wildcats lost a 16-12 slugfest to College of Southern Nevada in the team’s final home softball game Saturday at Edmonds Sports Complex in Carson City.

Western Nevada College pulled off a rare triple play and executed three double plays, but it wasn’t enough to prevent College of Southern Idaho from ending its hopes of hosting the Region 18 Tournament next week.

Kolton Brost became the first pitcher to shut out the Wildcats this season, blanking the Wildcats on four hits and striking out 11 as the Golden Eagles carved out a 5-0 Scenic West Athletic Conference baseball victory on Friday in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Western Nevada College Wildcats Softball plays host to the Coyotes of the College of Southern Nevada this weekend for the final series of the 2014 season. Games began Friday afternoon at Edmonds Sports Complex. Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

WNC fell 5-15, despite a fifth inning rally in the first game, and dropped the second game, 5-14.

Going into the final week of the Scenic West Athletic Conference baseball season, the race for first place is finally clear.

Western Nevada College needs to sweep a four-game series from College of Southern Idaho to win the regular-season title outright for the first time since 2011. The SWAC champion serves as the host for the May 7-10 Region 18 Tournament.

For the second straight game, Western Nevada College scored four times in the first inning, but the early offense wasn’t enough.

Snow scored seven runs in the third inning to rally for a 9-6 Scenic West Athletic Conference softball victory on Saturday in Ephraim, Utah.

Western Nevada College freshman outfielder Jake Bennett couldn’t have dreamed for a better situation to step to the plate in the ninth inning on Saturday afternoon.

With the Wildcats trailing rival College of Southern Nevada 3-2 and Joey Crunkilton on first base with one out, Bennett launched the first pitch from Josh Nuernberg over the right-field fence for a dramatic 4-3 comeback victory for WNC at John L. Harvey Field in Carson City.

There has been no scarcity of hits for the Western Nevada College softball team in recent Scenic West Athletic Conference series with Colorado Northwestern and North Idaho College.

But on Friday, the Wildcats struggled at the plate against Snow College pitchers Taylor Allman and Belle Stoddard in Ephraim, Utah.

Kansas Wesleyan’s Daria Leid has been selected as the AstroTurf-KCAC Pitcher of the Week for her efforts in helping the Coyotes to a 4-0 record last week.

Leid, a senior from Carson City, Nev., went 2-0 on the week, as Wesleyan beat Friends 3-2 behind her complete game performance and beat Bethel 10-0 in a run-rule shortened game on Saturday in Newton.

Against Friends, Leid held Friends to just three hits and two runs, while striking out six as KWU beat the Falcons 3-2. Friends batted just .130 as a team in the game, well below their season average of .329.

Nobody would have blamed Katilyn Covione if she had opted for the safety of the Wildcats’ dugout after taking a ball off the side of her face in the sixth inning on Saturday.

As Covione knelt on the ground and dealt with the pain of fouling a pitch off the side of her face, she focused on shaking off the injury and continuing her at-bat. A day earlier, she missed Western Nevada College’s two games against North Idaho after a pregame grounder cut her mouth and gave her an unrelenting headache.

After a record-setting 22-hit performance and 14-run output in their previous game, the Western Nevada College Wildcats had difficulty finding holes in the North Idaho Cardinals’ defense on Friday.

In their first home game at Edmonds Sports Complex in more than a month, the Wildcats were two-hit by a trio of Cardinals in the opening game, losing 5-0. North Idaho, one of the hottest Scenic West Athletic Conference softball teams, rallied to win game two, restricting the Wildcats to six hits in an 8-6 victory.

It was the type of half inning that Western Nevada College softball players won’t soon forget. Thirteen Wildcats came to the plate in the fourth inning, with nine of them hitting their way on base. By the time the damage was done, eight Wildcats had crossed the plate, turning a 3-1 deficit into a 9-3 lead.

The big rally inspired the Wildcats to swat a school-record 22 hits en route to a 14-6 Scenic West Athletic Conference victory and a doubleheader split with the Colorado Northwest Community College Spartans on Saturday in Rangely, Colo.

Western Nevada College took little time Friday afternoon to take control in the opener doubleheader of a four-game Scenic West Athletic Conference series against Colorado Northwestern Community College. In just one inning, the Wildcats established a 6-0 lead and never looked back.

The nightcap brought a closer contest, but WNC held on for a 6-4 win. The victories left the Wildcats in second place as the schedule nears tournament time, while the much-improved Colorado Northwestern team still sits near the bottom of the league.

Katilyn Covione pitched a complete-game four-hitter and Makenzie Hospodka knocked in five runs as Western Nevada College softball team returned to the win column in the Scenic West Athletic Conference.

After dropping the opening game of a doubleheader to Colorado Northwestern Community College on Friday, the Carson City based Wildcats battered the Spartans, 8-1, in game two in Rangely, Colo., to end a 16-game SWAC losing streak.
“It wasn’t just a win. I thought it was one of our best games all year,” said WNC coach Leah Wentworth. “They played a really solid game all the way around.”

They did everything but secure their first Scenic West Athletic Conference softball victory in a month.
Salt Lake pushed two runs across the plate in the seventh inning to rally for a 4-3 victory over the Western Nevada College Wildcats on Saturday afternoon in Salt Lake City.

“To have the lead all the way and to end it like that was devastating,” said WNC coach Leah Wentworth. “I’m happy we put ourselves in position to win. We need experiences like that, and moving forward, we need to learn from it.”

It wasn’t the desired result Western Nevada College was looking for prior to a four-game Scenic West Athletic Conference baseball series showdown with Salt Lake, but the Wildcats did something no other team has done this season — win in Salt Lake City.

The Wildcats gained a series split by outlasting the Bruins 7-5 in the final game Saturday. Needing a doubleheader sweep to creep within a game of first-place Salt Lake, WNC wasn’t counting on a shaky defense hurting its cause.

Jams don’t get much more stressful than the one relief pitcher Spencer Greer dealt with on Saturday afternoon at John L. Harvey Field in Carson City.

The Western Nevada College sophomore was protecting a one-run lead against College of Southern Idaho with the potential tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position with two outs in the top of the seventh inning.

With a base open, Greer instead focused on cleanup hitter R.J. Bush, retiring him looking at a third-strike curveball.

Through 13 innings of a Scenic West Athletic Conference baseball doubleheader on Friday, College of Southern Idaho denied Western Nevada College from putting a crooked number on the scoreboard. But with one swing by Alex Fife that changed as his homer brought in three runs, helping the Wildcats to a doubleheader split.

Fife’s homer was part of a four-run seventh inning that snapped a 1-1 tie and propelled the Wildcats to a 5-1 victory at John L. Harvey Field in Carson CIty. The Golden Eagles won the opener 6-2 behind the pitching of southpaw Kolton Brost.

After a silent day for the Western Nevada College bats on Friday, the Wildcats woke up offensively against 14th-ranked College of Southern Idaho on Saturday in Twins Falls, Idaho.

With eight different Wildcats delivering a hit in the opening game, the Carson City Western Nevada College team scored seven times in a 17-7 defeat. CSI completed the four-game Scenic West Athletic Conference sweep with a 14-3 victory in game two.

Three mercy-rule-shortened games against seventh-ranked College of Southern Nevada didn’t demoralize the Western Nevada College softball team on Saturday in Henderson.

Freshman pitcher Katilyn Covione blanked the Coyotes for four innings, and the Wildcats had the tying and possible winning runs in scoring positions in the final inning before CSN nailed down a 3-2 Scenic West Athletic Conference victory.

The Coyotes started their Saturday sweep with a five-inning 11-2 victory.

The Western Nevada College Wildcats may look back to Friday, March 14 as a pivotal point in their season. Two dramatic walk-off victories gave the Wildcats a momentum boost that inspired them to workmanlike 17-2 and 7-5 nonconference wins over Mount Hood Community College of Gresham, Ore., on Saturday in Carson City.

The four-game sweep improved WNC’s overall record to 19-9 and righted the club after splitting four games the previous weekend at Colorado Northwestern.