Quick Hitters
3 AWC men’s basketball players headed to next level
Arizona Western announced on Monday that three Matadors men’s basketball players have signed with or committed to four-year schools.
Sophomore guards Daryl Adams and Dajuan Beard are headed to East Central University (Okla.) and Union College (Ken.), respectively, and sophomore forward Lamont Traylor to St. Mary’s University (Tex.).
All three players were two-year members of the Matadors and a part of 49 wins and back-to-back Region I championships.
East Central University, located in Ada, Okla., and St. Mary’s University, located in San Antonio, Tex., are both NCAA Division II schools. Union College is in the NAIA.
Diablo’s holding tryouts
The Yuma Diablo’s 18/16U travel baseball team, coached by Faron Owl, will be holding tryouts at 4:30 p.m. today/Thursday at San Pasqual High School.
Cardinals aware of Kirk arrest before draft
PHOENIX — The Arizona Cardinals say they were aware before they drafted him that wide receiver Christian Kirk had been arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and property damage.
Azcentral.com reported the arrest and the Cardinals’ reaction to it.
The arrest occurred outside the Waste Management Phoenix Open golf tournament on Feb. 3. Scottsdale police said Kirk was with a group that was intoxicated and throwing rocks at cars.
Azcentral.com quoted a Cardinals spokesman as saying that team officials spoke to Kirk at length about the incident and it is the team’s understanding that the matter “will be resolved in the near future.” The case is pending and the team spokesman said there would be no further comment.
The Cardinals drafted Kirk in the second round. He was a standout at Saguaro High in Scottsdale and played at Texas A&M.
Ex-UA assistant coach gets prison term in stalking case
TUCSON — A former University of Arizona assistant track and field coach convicted of assaulting a female student-athlete has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Craig Carter was sentenced Monday after being convicted in March of aggravated assault and assault with a dangerous instrument.
He also pleaded guilty last month to charges of stalking and violating a protective order.
Carter will serve three years in prison on the stalking charge and 2 ½ years for violating the protective order with the sentences running concurrently to the five-year sentence.
He had faced up to 23 years in prison.
The 50-year-old ex-coach didn’t testify during his trial but admitted to authorities that he choked the woman and threatened her with a box cutter in 2015 when she wanted to end their relationship.
Jessica Roth didn’t even begin the season as the No. 1 singles player on Gila Ridge’s girls tennis team. But she ended it atop the area. Roth, the 2018 Yuma Sun/Yuma Rotary Club Girls Tennis Player of the Year, compiled an 18-2 overall singles record, including a 12-1 mark locally, as the senior leader of a Gila Ridge team that was once again the area’s best.
Roth’s closest competitors were her own teammates, as fellow senior Allison Taylor began the season at the No. 1 spot on the Hawks’ ladder (with Roth at No. 2) and Gila Ridge sophomore Nina Hook was responsible for Roth’s lone local defeat (at Crim Smash).
“She had a tremendous season,” coach Travis Bogart said. “I knew if she got the No. 1 spot for our team she could sweep the city. She played strong and moved well.”
It was after the mid-March Crim Smash tournament — at which Roth was the runner-up for the second year in a row — that she replaced Taylor at No. 1 in Gila Ridge’s lineup.
Roth stayed there for the remainder of the season, going 9-1 in No. 1 singles matches with all nine of those wins coming in straight sets. That included an impressive 6-1, 6-2 victory over Greenway’s McKenzie Cook in the first round of the AIA Division II team state tournament.
All told, seven of Roth’s 18 total single victories came against opponents who went on to be selected all-region; she beat Cibola No. 1 Amulya Doniparthi twice, Kofa No.