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Jan. 15—The year of 2025 was one filled with sports dynasties, unbelievable winning streaks, heaps of state titles and coaching carousels at the prep and college levels.
Kendrick's "triple crown" of boys sports titles and fifth straight state football crown took the spot as the top Tribune and Daily News sports story of the year.
Here's a look at Nos. 2-10:
2. LSU Shreveport has an improbable perfect 59-0 season, capped by winning the NAIA World Series in Lewiston
LSU Shreveport made history in May, as the perfect Pilots concluded an improbable undefeated season with an Avista NAIA World Series national championship in Lewiston.
The Pilots went a perfect 59-0 on the season, which is an all-time best at any level of college baseball.
LSU Shreveport was the first NAIA baseball team to complete an unbeaten season. The Pilots topped the previous college baseball record of 57 straight wins achieved by junior college Howard College of Texas, which ended up finishing its 2009 season with a 63-1 record and winning a national title.
LSUS' ace pitcher Isaac Rhode was named the MVP of the Series. Meanwhile, Cooper Huspen of LSUS was given the Charles Berry Hustle Award and Jose Sallorin was given the Most Outstanding Defensive Player award.
The Pilots defeated Southeastern (Fla.) 13-7 on May 30 to accomplish the historic feat.
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3. Lewiston middle schooler achieves national-elite girls track time
Paisley Bonner of Lewiston's Sacajawea Middle School wrapped up her spring 2025 track and field season with the second-fastest sixth-grade girls 1,600-meter time in the United States, according to records kept on athletic.net.
Her mark of 5 minutes, 17.80 seconds, clocked at the North Idaho Invitational held at Clarkston High School, was surpassed among her peers only by Aubree Miner of Cheyenne-Eagle Butte Middle School in South Dakota, who had weeks-earlier run a remarkable 5:04.81.
Bonner continued to impress as she started her seventh grade year in the fall season — for example, breaking the middle school girls course record at the Lewis-Clark State College Cross Country Trail in the Lewiston Orchards with a 2.5-mile mark of 9:16.
4. Moscow Bears clinch first girls soccer state title in school history
The Moscow Bears' run to a girls soccer state championship included a title game that spanned all 90 minutes of regulation, one overtime period and extended into a second overtime period before Winnie Colvin sank a shot into the upper left side of the goal to break a tie. Colvin's goal helped the Bears win 1-0 in the Idaho Class 5A state championship game over Vallivue of Caldwell.
To get to the final, the fifth-seeded Bears upset No. 1 Hillcrest in a game that came down to a shootout.
Moscow finished the season 14-3-3 and dropped just one of its final 12 matches.
The Bears were honored with a parade starting at Moscow High School and stretching a mile to the Bear Den.
In the Class 5A Inland Empire League's postseason honors released in November, Moscow's Jessica Brown was named coach of the year, Bear co-goalkeeper Bailie Brown was tabbed as newcomer of the year and teammates Kolbi Kiblen, Addison Lassen, Mattea Nuhn and Hazel Stevens each made the all-league team.
5. Return of Robbins: LC State fires baseball coach Jake Taylor, hire back old coach Jeremiah Robbins
Shortly after the Lewis-Clark State baseball team failed to reach the Avista NAIA World Series for a second straight year, LCSC fired coach Jake Taylor and tapped his predecessor, Jeremiah Robbins, to be his successor.
Taylor won more than 76% of his games and held the third-most victories in program history, but his lack of a national championship during his seven-year tenure and failure to reach the World Series in recent years led LCSC to making a change.
In turn, the Warriors hired perhaps the best candidate on Earth for the job — the only other coach not named Ed Cheff to win a national championship with the Warriors.
Robbins won three consecutive titles (2015-17) during his six-year tenure and left on his own accord in 2018.
Seven years later and a month after being inducted into the Warriors' Hall of Fame, Robbins picked up the phone and is back in Lewiston.
"It's LC State, man," Robbins said in May. "If they call, you answer. Plain and simple."
6. Prairie fires longtime girls basketball coach Lori Mader, two other coaches. Rival Lapwai hires Mader
In June, the Cottonwood Board of Trustees chose to fire three Prairie High School head coaches, including longtime girls basketball coach Lori Mader, without a public reason, and, according to Mader, without telling the coaches themselves.
The school board also chose not to renew the contracts of volleyball coach Julie Schumacher and baseball coach David Shears during the same meeting.
The decisions were made in an executive session of the board, which means that no one involved in the meeting could talk about the business conducted during the meeting.
Mader coached the Prairie Pirates girls basketball team — her alma mater — for 15 years, leading the Pirates to the state tournament in each of those campaigns.
Shortly after Prairie dismissed her, Mader took the helm of the Pirates' longtime league rival, Lapwai.
Daily headlines, straight to your inboxRead it online first and stay up-to-date, delivered daily at 7 AM
As of press time Wednesday night, Mader has the Wildcats off to an undefeated 10-0 start.
Prairie hired local coaching veteran Teel Bruner to lead the Pirates. He has Prairie off to a 9-4 start.
"Is my heart broke? Certainly, in every measure it's broke. But I don't feel ashamed or (that) I did anything wrong," Mader said in June. "Life will go on. Will it be different? For sure. Will I miss the program? Will I miss the kids? Absolutely. But again, when a door closes, one always opens."
7. Changing of the guard: Zane Hobart/Ty Koepp
Having coached Kendrick to four consecutive small-school state football titles, longtime Tigers headman Zane Hobart made a homecoming of sorts when he stepped into the vacancy created by the departure of Matt Pancheri at Lewiston High School, Hobart's alma mater.
Meanwhile, Hobart's former star quarterback Ty Koepp filled the void at Kendrick. At 19 years of age when the season began, Koepp was the region's youngest head coach.
Hobart, who had assembled a coaching staff composed entirely of Lewiston alumni, helped the Bengals claim their first league title since 2017 via a Kansas tiebreaker victory over Sandpoint and Lakeland of Rathdrum. Their season ended on a heartbreaking 28-27 overtime state playoff defeat to Lakeland.
Koepp oversaw the Tigers' third undefeated season in the last four years and fifth consecutive state title. It was seen by many observers, including Koepp himself, as the greatest season of Kendrick's storied dynasty.
8. Massive sports changes at WSU
It was another seismic year of change for Washington State University.
The school hired a new president, Elizabeth Cantwell, slashed its track and field program, fired an athletic director and saw a head football coach move in and out of Pullman within the same calendar year.
Cantwell arrived in Pullman after a brief tenure as Utah State's president. There, she piloted the Aggies into the new Pac-12 with WSU, which will officially add seven new full-time members, including regional schools Boise State and Gonzaga in July.
However, with another transition year and the lack of the traditional Pac-12's revenue sources, WSU cut field events from its track and field program and scaled back its sprints.
Then, in October, WSU fired athletic director Anne McCoy after 17 months on the job. McCoy had worked for WSU in some capacity for over two decades.
With the new Pac-12 on the horizon, Cantwell seemed to want someone to lead the athletic department who could pack a bigger financial/fundraising punch than McCoy may have been capable of. WSU has not hired a full-time replacement and CFO Jon Haarlow has served as interim AD.
However, football coach Jimmy Rogers did not wait around to find out if WSU would be successful in this endeavor when his "dream job," opened up at Iowa State.
After leading the Cougars to a 6-6 season against a tough schedule, Rogers jumped ship and the Cougars hired Kirby Moore, a Prosser, Wash., native and Boise State grad, who for the last three years was Missouri's offensive coordinator.
Defensive coordinator Jesse Bobbit, who accepted a job as Iowa State's DC, stepped in as interim head coach and the Cougars beat Utah State in Boise's Famous Idaho Potato Bowl — the Cougars' first bowl game win since 2018.
Now, the Cougars will enter the new Pac-12 with a new president, head football coach and athletic director.
9. Call Moscow a track title town: State titles for Moscow girls, Logos girls and boys on same day
One state title for a small or medium-sized town is cause to celebrate, but three on the exact same day? That's a rare feat.
On May 17, the Moscow Bear girls track team claimed the 5A state title in Meridian, while the Logos Knight boys and girls took 2A crowns about 30 minutes away in Middleton.
Moscow was led by stellar sophomore Mattea Nuhn, who successfully defended her state titles in the 100- and 300-meter hurdles and the high jump. She also anchored the Bears' first-place 400 relay, which clocked in at 49.26 seconds with help from Jasmine Carr, Addie Lassen and Ashlyn Fakhouri.
For Logos, both of the Knights' 1,600 relay teams set classification records in their victories.
The boys relay of Seamus Wilson, Olaf Sundlie, Jesiah Brower and Asaph Grieser took first in 3:29.06, breaking a record set in 1996 by Carey when the classification was called 1A. The girls 1,600 relay of Naomi Taylor, Lizzie Crawford, Marisol Wilson and Chloe Jankovic won in 4:03.86 to break Logos' own classification record.
If that wasn't enough to cement Moscow as a running town, 2A 1,600 winner John Henry Crappuchettes of Logos followed up his individual state title with a crown in cross country in the fall.
10. Garfield-Palouse claims 1B volleyball state title
Garfield-Palouse volleyball claimed its first title since 2004.
The Vikings defeated Fellowship Christian of Everett 26-24, 25-18, 25-21 in the 1B state finals.
Before that match, Fellowship Christian did not drop a set throughout the entire state tournament.
The Vikings also had to defeat Oakesdale — a nemesis Garfield-Palouse had not beaten in a decade before this year.
Garfield-Palouse was led by Morgan Lentz, who dished out many assists and kill leaders Kyra Branter and Elena Flansburg.
"I kept telling them, 'If we just keep doing our thing, there'll be no problems,' and they really stuck into that and did what we do best, which was serve-receiving and putting the ball down," Gar-Pal coach Sarah Foss said of her team's postseason run. "Awesome attackers, amazing serve-receive, and that's pretty hard to come up against."
Continue reading...
Kendrick's "triple crown" of boys sports titles and fifth straight state football crown took the spot as the top Tribune and Daily News sports story of the year.
Here's a look at Nos. 2-10:
2. LSU Shreveport has an improbable perfect 59-0 season, capped by winning the NAIA World Series in Lewiston
LSU Shreveport made history in May, as the perfect Pilots concluded an improbable undefeated season with an Avista NAIA World Series national championship in Lewiston.
The Pilots went a perfect 59-0 on the season, which is an all-time best at any level of college baseball.
LSU Shreveport was the first NAIA baseball team to complete an unbeaten season. The Pilots topped the previous college baseball record of 57 straight wins achieved by junior college Howard College of Texas, which ended up finishing its 2009 season with a 63-1 record and winning a national title.
LSUS' ace pitcher Isaac Rhode was named the MVP of the Series. Meanwhile, Cooper Huspen of LSUS was given the Charles Berry Hustle Award and Jose Sallorin was given the Most Outstanding Defensive Player award.
The Pilots defeated Southeastern (Fla.) 13-7 on May 30 to accomplish the historic feat.
Advertisement
3. Lewiston middle schooler achieves national-elite girls track time
Paisley Bonner of Lewiston's Sacajawea Middle School wrapped up her spring 2025 track and field season with the second-fastest sixth-grade girls 1,600-meter time in the United States, according to records kept on athletic.net.
Her mark of 5 minutes, 17.80 seconds, clocked at the North Idaho Invitational held at Clarkston High School, was surpassed among her peers only by Aubree Miner of Cheyenne-Eagle Butte Middle School in South Dakota, who had weeks-earlier run a remarkable 5:04.81.
Bonner continued to impress as she started her seventh grade year in the fall season — for example, breaking the middle school girls course record at the Lewis-Clark State College Cross Country Trail in the Lewiston Orchards with a 2.5-mile mark of 9:16.
4. Moscow Bears clinch first girls soccer state title in school history
The Moscow Bears' run to a girls soccer state championship included a title game that spanned all 90 minutes of regulation, one overtime period and extended into a second overtime period before Winnie Colvin sank a shot into the upper left side of the goal to break a tie. Colvin's goal helped the Bears win 1-0 in the Idaho Class 5A state championship game over Vallivue of Caldwell.
To get to the final, the fifth-seeded Bears upset No. 1 Hillcrest in a game that came down to a shootout.
Moscow finished the season 14-3-3 and dropped just one of its final 12 matches.
The Bears were honored with a parade starting at Moscow High School and stretching a mile to the Bear Den.
In the Class 5A Inland Empire League's postseason honors released in November, Moscow's Jessica Brown was named coach of the year, Bear co-goalkeeper Bailie Brown was tabbed as newcomer of the year and teammates Kolbi Kiblen, Addison Lassen, Mattea Nuhn and Hazel Stevens each made the all-league team.
5. Return of Robbins: LC State fires baseball coach Jake Taylor, hire back old coach Jeremiah Robbins
Shortly after the Lewis-Clark State baseball team failed to reach the Avista NAIA World Series for a second straight year, LCSC fired coach Jake Taylor and tapped his predecessor, Jeremiah Robbins, to be his successor.
Taylor won more than 76% of his games and held the third-most victories in program history, but his lack of a national championship during his seven-year tenure and failure to reach the World Series in recent years led LCSC to making a change.
In turn, the Warriors hired perhaps the best candidate on Earth for the job — the only other coach not named Ed Cheff to win a national championship with the Warriors.
Robbins won three consecutive titles (2015-17) during his six-year tenure and left on his own accord in 2018.
Seven years later and a month after being inducted into the Warriors' Hall of Fame, Robbins picked up the phone and is back in Lewiston.
"It's LC State, man," Robbins said in May. "If they call, you answer. Plain and simple."
6. Prairie fires longtime girls basketball coach Lori Mader, two other coaches. Rival Lapwai hires Mader
In June, the Cottonwood Board of Trustees chose to fire three Prairie High School head coaches, including longtime girls basketball coach Lori Mader, without a public reason, and, according to Mader, without telling the coaches themselves.
The school board also chose not to renew the contracts of volleyball coach Julie Schumacher and baseball coach David Shears during the same meeting.
The decisions were made in an executive session of the board, which means that no one involved in the meeting could talk about the business conducted during the meeting.
Mader coached the Prairie Pirates girls basketball team — her alma mater — for 15 years, leading the Pirates to the state tournament in each of those campaigns.
Shortly after Prairie dismissed her, Mader took the helm of the Pirates' longtime league rival, Lapwai.
Daily headlines, straight to your inboxRead it online first and stay up-to-date, delivered daily at 7 AM
As of press time Wednesday night, Mader has the Wildcats off to an undefeated 10-0 start.
Prairie hired local coaching veteran Teel Bruner to lead the Pirates. He has Prairie off to a 9-4 start.
"Is my heart broke? Certainly, in every measure it's broke. But I don't feel ashamed or (that) I did anything wrong," Mader said in June. "Life will go on. Will it be different? For sure. Will I miss the program? Will I miss the kids? Absolutely. But again, when a door closes, one always opens."
7. Changing of the guard: Zane Hobart/Ty Koepp
Having coached Kendrick to four consecutive small-school state football titles, longtime Tigers headman Zane Hobart made a homecoming of sorts when he stepped into the vacancy created by the departure of Matt Pancheri at Lewiston High School, Hobart's alma mater.
Meanwhile, Hobart's former star quarterback Ty Koepp filled the void at Kendrick. At 19 years of age when the season began, Koepp was the region's youngest head coach.
Hobart, who had assembled a coaching staff composed entirely of Lewiston alumni, helped the Bengals claim their first league title since 2017 via a Kansas tiebreaker victory over Sandpoint and Lakeland of Rathdrum. Their season ended on a heartbreaking 28-27 overtime state playoff defeat to Lakeland.
Koepp oversaw the Tigers' third undefeated season in the last four years and fifth consecutive state title. It was seen by many observers, including Koepp himself, as the greatest season of Kendrick's storied dynasty.
8. Massive sports changes at WSU
It was another seismic year of change for Washington State University.
The school hired a new president, Elizabeth Cantwell, slashed its track and field program, fired an athletic director and saw a head football coach move in and out of Pullman within the same calendar year.
Cantwell arrived in Pullman after a brief tenure as Utah State's president. There, she piloted the Aggies into the new Pac-12 with WSU, which will officially add seven new full-time members, including regional schools Boise State and Gonzaga in July.
However, with another transition year and the lack of the traditional Pac-12's revenue sources, WSU cut field events from its track and field program and scaled back its sprints.
Then, in October, WSU fired athletic director Anne McCoy after 17 months on the job. McCoy had worked for WSU in some capacity for over two decades.
With the new Pac-12 on the horizon, Cantwell seemed to want someone to lead the athletic department who could pack a bigger financial/fundraising punch than McCoy may have been capable of. WSU has not hired a full-time replacement and CFO Jon Haarlow has served as interim AD.
However, football coach Jimmy Rogers did not wait around to find out if WSU would be successful in this endeavor when his "dream job," opened up at Iowa State.
After leading the Cougars to a 6-6 season against a tough schedule, Rogers jumped ship and the Cougars hired Kirby Moore, a Prosser, Wash., native and Boise State grad, who for the last three years was Missouri's offensive coordinator.
Defensive coordinator Jesse Bobbit, who accepted a job as Iowa State's DC, stepped in as interim head coach and the Cougars beat Utah State in Boise's Famous Idaho Potato Bowl — the Cougars' first bowl game win since 2018.
Now, the Cougars will enter the new Pac-12 with a new president, head football coach and athletic director.
9. Call Moscow a track title town: State titles for Moscow girls, Logos girls and boys on same day
One state title for a small or medium-sized town is cause to celebrate, but three on the exact same day? That's a rare feat.
On May 17, the Moscow Bear girls track team claimed the 5A state title in Meridian, while the Logos Knight boys and girls took 2A crowns about 30 minutes away in Middleton.
Moscow was led by stellar sophomore Mattea Nuhn, who successfully defended her state titles in the 100- and 300-meter hurdles and the high jump. She also anchored the Bears' first-place 400 relay, which clocked in at 49.26 seconds with help from Jasmine Carr, Addie Lassen and Ashlyn Fakhouri.
For Logos, both of the Knights' 1,600 relay teams set classification records in their victories.
The boys relay of Seamus Wilson, Olaf Sundlie, Jesiah Brower and Asaph Grieser took first in 3:29.06, breaking a record set in 1996 by Carey when the classification was called 1A. The girls 1,600 relay of Naomi Taylor, Lizzie Crawford, Marisol Wilson and Chloe Jankovic won in 4:03.86 to break Logos' own classification record.
If that wasn't enough to cement Moscow as a running town, 2A 1,600 winner John Henry Crappuchettes of Logos followed up his individual state title with a crown in cross country in the fall.
10. Garfield-Palouse claims 1B volleyball state title
Garfield-Palouse volleyball claimed its first title since 2004.
The Vikings defeated Fellowship Christian of Everett 26-24, 25-18, 25-21 in the 1B state finals.
Before that match, Fellowship Christian did not drop a set throughout the entire state tournament.
The Vikings also had to defeat Oakesdale — a nemesis Garfield-Palouse had not beaten in a decade before this year.
Garfield-Palouse was led by Morgan Lentz, who dished out many assists and kill leaders Kyra Branter and Elena Flansburg.
"I kept telling them, 'If we just keep doing our thing, there'll be no problems,' and they really stuck into that and did what we do best, which was serve-receiving and putting the ball down," Gar-Pal coach Sarah Foss said of her team's postseason run. "Awesome attackers, amazing serve-receive, and that's pretty hard to come up against."
Continue reading...
