College Update: Napier, Salukis headed to Women’s Basketball Invitational
BY GRANT GORDON
The following are updates on local athletes at the collegiate level.
Rishonda Napier (Bellarmine-Jefferson, 2012) Southern Illinois basketball junior: Napier and the Salukis are off to the Women’s Basketball Invitational, where they’ll open up on Thursday at Western Illinois.
In the process, Napier and Co. will make Southern Illinois’ first postseason appearance since 2007.
Napier, one of three Salukis to earn All-Missouri Valley Conference first-team honors, is leading the team with 14.9 points and 3.6 assists per game, while turning in the conference’s second-best free-throw percentage at 82.7.
Napier, who has started in all 32 games for Southern Illinois, is turning in career-highs of 87 rebounds and 78 three-pointers made along with her points and assists numbers.
After advancing to the MVC tournament semifinals for the first time since 1997, the Salukis take a 20-12 record into the WIT.
Andre Spight (Burbank High) Arizona State basketball junior: Spight, who transferred from Burbank to Pacific League-rival Pasadena in his high school days, is now seemingly moving on to another college.
On Feb. 23, it was reported by The Arizona Republic that ASU Coach Bobby Hurley had announced that Spight had left the program and intended to transfer. Hurley did not offer much more detail and said it was Spight’s decision. Spight did not, reportedly, offer a comment over the phone when he was reached by the Republic.
The timing of the departure was puzzling as it came with four games left in the regular season, which the Sun Devils finished with a 15-17 record and a 5-13 mark in the Pacific 12 Conference.
Spight was on the heels of two of his better performances, having scored a team-high 21 points in a Feb. 14 loss to UCLA and then tying for a team-high with 15 points in a loss at Arizona three days later.
For the season, Spight played in all 27 games of which he was part of the roster, starting in eight and averaging 6.6 points per game.
Spight transferred from South Plains College in Texas to Arizona State and was originally committed to the University of Texas El Paso.
Chris Peres (Burroughs High, 2015) La Verne baseball freshman: It hasn’t taken long for the Burroughs product to make an impact at La Verne.
Peres has a team-leading 23 runs batted in, which is second in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. In addition, he’s batting a whopping .407 with 24 hits in 59 at-bats to go with 14 runs, five extra-base hits and a .559 slugging percentage.
The third baseman wasted no time in making his mark, hitting safely in his first nine college games, going 14 for 30 in that span. Peres just ended a six-game hitting streak recently, as well. Overall, he’s tallied hits in 15 of the 17 games he’s played.
Christopher Ligot, a freshman from Burbank who attended Alemany High, is also turning in a good rookie season, sporting a .314 average (11 for 35) with 11 RBI and six runs. The outfielder’s best outing thus far came in an 11-2 SCIAC win over Caltech on Feb. 19 when he went four for five with two doubles, two RBI and a stolen base.
Riding a five-game winning streak, La Verne (14-4, 7-2 in conference) travels to Pomona-Pitzer on Friday to begin a three-game conference series.
John White (Burbank High, 2013) Redlands baseball junior: Coming out of the bullpen, White has been mowing down the opposition.
Through 11 appearances, White has struck out 20 batters in just 12 2/3 innings pitched with a 1.42 earned-run average and a team-high three saves to go with a 2-0 record.
White, who’s issued just five walks, has held the opposition scoreless over his last three appearances, his latest coming Saturday when he locked down a save to secure a 5-3 win over Cal Lutheran in a Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game.
Redlands (13-6, 9-3 in conference) plays a nonconference game Friday at home against Ithaca.
Sawyer Patterson (Burroughs High, 2015) Redlands tennis freshman: Patterson is seeing time in the doubles lineup for Redlands, which entered its match Tuesday against Texas-Tyler with an 8-1 record, having taken its first loss of the year on Thursday against Wesleyan.
Having played exclusively in doubles, Patterson is 7-2, with eight of those matches having come from the No. 3 slot. Patterson has paired with three different partners.
Anastasia Tsybaeva (Burbank High, 2015) East Los Angeles basketball freshman: The 6-foot-6 center was at the heart of a memorable season for East L.A., which came up short Sunday against South Coast Conference rival Mount San Antonio College, 57-55, in the California Community College Athletic Assn. Championship at Las Positas College.
Mt. SAC overcame a 19-point deficit for the win, which was a record-tying seventh women’s championship.
Tsybaeva got the start for East L.A. (24-10) and turned in 10 points and three blocks, but Mt. SAC (34-1) defeated the Huskies for the third time this season, coming back from a 34-17 halftime deficit.
For the season, Tsybaeva led her team with 56 blocks, 36 more than any other teammate and 1.8 per game. She also tallied six points and 3.8 rebounds per game.
She turned in season-highs of five blocks and 23 points on 11-of-13 shooting in a 96-40 win at L.A. Harbor on Jan. 13. Her best performance might well have come Feb. 26 in a postseason win against Santa Ana in which she turned in 17 points and 10 rebounds in a 101-94 victory.
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Grant Gordon, grant.gordon@latimes.com
Twitter: @TCNGrantGordon
