PARKVILLE, Mo. — Park University has announced two more names will join Ed Bradley on the 2018 Park Athletic Wall of Honor.
Soccer player Maria Ruiz and volleyball player Colleen (Mahoney) Scherman are the second and third selections. The school will announce more names to the 2018 class later this week and inductions will be held in September.
Ruiz played 2004-2007 for Park and tallied the second most goals in school history — behind fellow WOH inductee Leah Snider — with 109, the 12th most in NAIA history. Her 33 goals in 2004 is the second best in school history and she also ranks fourth, fifth and eighth.
Contributed photo
Park soccer player Maria Ruiz, being lifted, is one of the first three inductees for the 2018 Park Athletic Wall of Honor announced by the school.
She was a second-team All-American for the Pirates.
Scherman was Park’s first-ever NAIA All-American volleyball player, earning that honor as a senior in 2006. She collected 1,164 kills and 1,094 digs in just two seasons at Park and held the school record in kills with 616 for seven seasons. In 2006, her 3.99 kills per set was the second-best in the Midlands Collegiate Athletic Conference and 24th best at the NAIA level. The year prior, her 4.41 kills per set was eighth best in the country.
The former Colleen Mahoney married former men’s volleyball player Nate Scherman. The couple has three kids and resides in Olathe, Kan.
Three in a row
The Park men’s golf team opened the 2018 portion of the schedule with three straight tournament wins.
On March 12-13, the Pirates won the Ottawa Invitational held in Lawrence, Kan. Junior Wes Buntenbach won his first collegiate meet by shooting a 67 at Eagle Bend Golf Course, part of a 1-2-3 finish for the Pirates.
Yannick Koehnen was second and Nate Ryan was third, helping Park win by 35 shots.
Ryan Tattan took second and helped the Pirates win the Graceland Invitational in Maryville, Mo. held March 23-24.
The freshman from Essex, England, Tattan shot 74 both days to help the Pirates rally and edge Culver-Stockton to win the team title at Mozingo Lake Golf Course. Koehnen, a freshman from Nordrhein Westfalen, Germany, tied for fourth and junior Zach Spencer tied for ninth for the Pirates.
The third win came March 26-27 at the Kansas Wesleyan Invitational held in Salina, Kan. The Pirates overcame an eight-shot deficit to win by a shot against the host. Dating back to Sept. 2017, it was the fifth win of the 2017-18 season for the Pirates.
Tattan tied for second, followed by Buntenbach in fourth and Koehnen tied for sixth.
The Pirates play next April 16-17 against Virginia McCoy Intercollegiate at The Deuce at The National Golf Club in Kansas City.
AMC track honors
Park swept the AMC track and field awards given out on March 26 by the league.
Jerosan Feltcher, Michaela Lemons, Joshua Goodloe and Sebastian Keditukei were honored for their performance at the KC Quad Challenge in Leavenworth, Kan.
The award is the ninth for Fletcher, while the other three are honored for the first time.
Keditukei was the men’s field athlete of the week after winning the javelin event. He was also on the winning 4x400-meter relay and second in the 800.
Goodloe won the 800-meter run, with a personal best time, winning the men’s track athlete of the week honors.
Fletcher was the women’s track athlete of the week after winning the 200–meter dash, while also winning the long jump. Lemons won the discus and took second in the shot put to take the women’s field athlete of the week.
women’s Basketball adds 3 players
The Park women’s basketball team has added two transfers and one prep player, bringing the signing class to five players so far.
Coach Kenneth Cooper recently added 5-foot-10 guard Kennedy Kuykendall from Sauk Valley (Ill.) Community College, 5-6 guard Destinee Robinson from Northwestern Oklahoma State University and 5-4 guard Vickie Cuevas from Oak Hills (Calif.) High School.
Robinson is a native of nearby Leavenworth, Kan., and will come to Park after playing two years at the Division II level. She averaged 4.2 points per game in 27 games as a freshman and scored 3.9 points per game in 24 games this past season.
In high school, she helped the Pioneers win the Class 5A title in 2014 and 2015.
Kuykendall averaged 18.5 points and 7.4 rebounds per game. She was an all-conference and all-region pick both seasons at the JUCO.
Cuevas was a first-team all-Mojave River League pick in California.
Three honored for grades
Park University women’s basketball players Brooklyn Campbell, Selena Dunn and Camille Buttorff were named to the Daktronics NAIA Women’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete team.
Campbell, a senior, is a biology major. Dunn is a graduate student working on her MBA, while Buttorff is a senior international business major.