Idaho women’s basketball coach

to speak to NIC Booster Club

COEUR d’ALENE — Jon Newlee, head women’s basketball coach at the University of Idaho, will be the guest speaker at the NIC Booster Club Luncheon at noon Tuesday at The Coeur d’Alene Resort.

Newlee was hired as the ninth head coach in Idaho women’s basketball history in 2008. Newlee inherited a team that won just four games the season before his arrival and has since become Idaho’s all-time leader in wins with 169. He has led Idaho to six postseason bids — including three NCAA tournaments — in his 10 seasons at the helm. Newlee has won three conference tournament championships, 102 conference games, 15 conference tournament games and two WAC Coach of the Year honors. He led the program to its first postseason appearance in 25 years with a WBI bid in 2011 and its first NCAA bid since 1985 by winning the 2013 WAC tournament.

Newlee coached the Vandals to a return trip to the Big Sky Tournament championship in 2018. The Vandals earned the No. 2 seed in the tournament after going 13-5 in the conference (19-14 overall). Idaho was awarded the Big Sky’s automatic bid to the WNIT, returning to the postseason for the third straight season.

The public is welcome to attend the luncheon. The NIC Booster Club meets on the second and last Tuesday of each month at noon at various locations in the community.

Information: nic.edu/athletics; (208) 769-3348

Palaniuk finishes seventh, now in 10th

in Angler of the Year race

WADDINGTON, N.Y. — Brandon Palaniuk of Hayden finished seventh Sunday in the Huk Bassmaster Elite at St. Lawrence River, part of the Bassmaster Elite Series.

Palaniuk, the former Lakeland High and North Idaho College wrestler, had a four-day catch of 89 pounds, 2 ounces.

Josh Bertrand of San Tan Valley, Ariz., won with a four-day total of 95-3.

The derby was the final regular-season event before the top 50 pros in the points race advance to the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship at Georgia’s Lake Chatuge in mid-September.

Palaniuk, last year’s Angler of the Year, currently sits in 10th place.