Spring Sports Latvians doing NCAA Track, Field, Rowing, Tennis and even Golf By Janis Celms

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1 Spring Sports Latvians doing NCAA Track, Field, Rowing, Tennis and even Golf By Janis Celms Spring seems to be dodging us everywhere this year with late snow storms and cooler weather making good outdoor results difficult thus far. But as I continued to dig I found an endless array of new athletes popping up across the college scene and although my usual spring focus has been Track & Field and Crew I was frankly blown away by the tennis and yes, even golf competitors from Latvia participating at various levels in the college ranks. But what really speaks volumes is the pursuit that these kids have for getting their college degree while letting athletics leverage that goal they truly fit the old creed of Scholar Athlete. Enjoy! And if you are aware of any athlete I am leaving out, please let me know. TRACK & FIELD Immediate congratulations should go to several outstanding performances at this year s NCAA Division I Indoor Championships at Fayetteville Arkansas on March 8-9. Leading the group is Agata Strausa who finished 3 rd in the One Mile Run. Her time was 4:36.91 behind the winning time of 4:29. Agata is a junior at Florida State and this is my first notice of her running. From what I can find, she also qualified for the NCAA Finals last year. She has listed times for running 3,000 meters and 3,000 M Steeplechase and is a member of the team s Distance Medley Relay. Should be interesting to see how she fairs in the outdoor season. Below is a nice link to a video interview with her: Field-Championships/video/ Agata-Stausa-suprise-third-place-finish NCAA-Indoor-Track-and-Field-Championships Also at the Indoor NCAA Championships earlier this year, long jumper Mara Griva placed 10 th in the triple jump with 12.9M or 42 4 and got 10 th in the Long Jump with 6.08M or ½. She is a senior at the University of Nebraska from Ventspils and has earned seven All-American recognitions during her career at Nebraska. This last weekend, she won both the long jump and triple jump at the highly regarded Drake Relays. Last year she hit the national spot light as a sophomore, claiming four Big 12 titles and earning four All-America honors. Her list of results is excellent and well stated on the Nebraska Track & Field website for your examination. Mara s best in Latvia has been 3 rd in both events at the

2 Latvian National Championships. Couple links below show nice pictures of her winning the Drake Relays this weekend. At the same meet, her team mate, Janis Leitis won the men s long jump placing him with the 7 th best jump of this year s NCAA outdoor season at /2 or 7.86 M. Also at the NCAA Division I 2013 Indoor Championships, Janis Leitis, a senior, earned two 9th place finishes in both the Long Jump M or 25 4 ½ and in the Triple Jump with a distance of M or 51 9 ¼. Leitis also helps the Nebraska men's 4x400 meter relay team. He has good sprint times having an indoor personal best of 6.92 in the 60 meters and in the 200 meters and in the 400 meters. He has also earned All-America honors in both jumping events. Janis competed at the 2012 London Olympics, recording a time of in the 400 meters advancing to the quarterfinals. He won the 2009 European U23 (under 23 years) long jump title with a mark of Janis is the son of Eriks Leitis and is a nutrition and health sciences major at Nebraska. An interesting tidbit in one article states that Mara Griva and Janis Leitis have been dating couple for several years. Please see nice link on personal article written about Janis in Omaha. m/2013/04/11/submit-your-photos-for-our-salute-to-husker-fans/ Another 10 th place at the NCAA Indoor Championships went to sophomore middle distance runner Erika Veidis from Harvard University. She qualified to the NCAA meet with a time of 2:05.70 which is the second fastest mark in the 800 meter in Harvard s history. Erika finished in sixth place in her heat, crossing the finish line in 2:06.69 and when the results from both heats were compiled, her time earned her 10th place, just 0.54 seconds short of a spot in the final heat. Erika is an American Latvian with an impressive New Jersey high school running history her results can be seen on the Harvard Track website. A true statement of the Scholar Athlete, Erika was a National Honor Society and French National Honor Society member, High school Valedictorian and member of the Latvian Youth Organization and American Latvian Association member. She enjoys playing the violin and guitar. Her uncle, Andris Zmuidins, played football and lacrosse at Princeton and father, Janis Veidis, played volleyball at Syracuse while her mother, Mara Veidis, was a competitive figure skater and track runner.

3 Watching TV late February I saw the jump off-of the C-USA Conference Indoor Championship pole vault event after University of Memphis' Austin Crenshaw and team mate Pauls Pujats, and Rice's Chris Pillow all tied at a height of 5.27m (17'3.5"). At one point, Pujats was thought to have cleared a C-USA Indoor Championships record height that would have ended the event with Pujats taking gold, but the vault was nullified by the officials for apparently illegally touching the bar. Crenshaw and Pujats eventually finished first and second following the jump-off. Pauls is the highly recruited Latvian pole vaulter who is the 2010 Outdoor Latvian Champion and follows the footsteps or older brother Karlis who also vaulted for Memphis. Since the controversial call at the C-USA conference meet, I cannot find any outdoor results for Pauls. It s possible that he is suffering an injury, but he should be watched carefully in the future. I think Pujats should be a regular finalist in the NCAAs the next few years. Not sure if this is a family relationship, but a Nikija Pujute is a horizontal jumper for Indiana State. This spring as a freshman she is a consistent competitor in long jump and triple jump establishing a career best distance of (5.14m) in long jump and also a career best distance in triple jump of (11.42m). She is from Riga Secondary School #45. Also at the Drake Relays this weekend, another Latvian from the University of Nebraska, Nikita Pankins posted a season best of ¾ (7.31M) in the long jump. Nikita Pankins, a freshman, competed in seven meets during the indoor season setting bests of 6.96 in the 60 meters and in the 200 meters. He also had a season-best long jump of /4 (7.41) finished ninth in the long jump at the 2013 Big Ten Indoor Championships, posting a leap of /4 (7.23). Pankins is from Riga, Latvia and has impressive results in various European meets where he finished 13th in the long jump at the 2010 IAAF World Junior Championships. Nikita is the son of Dmitrijs and Natalja Pankins of Riga. The Idaho Vandals have two Latvian track athletes. A few weeks ago Liga Velvere, now a senior from Saldus, ( Latvian Academy of Sport), ran a season best and WAC leading time of 2:07.83 to win the women s 800M. It s the secondfastest time of her career and ranks 41st in the NCAA so far this season. Last year Liga Velvere ranked #32 in the 400M Hurdles with a time of She also helps the Vandal women s 4x400m relay team as the anchor along with having respectable times in the 200M and 400M hurdles. Earlier in the year, she was also named the Western Athletic Conference Women's Indoor Track and Field Athletes of the Week, for the week of Feb

4 And back to Latvia s dominate track & field event the Javelin. Last weekend in Spokane, WA, the University of Idaho Vandal senior, Ugis Svazs broke the Idaho school record in the javelin wining the event with a career best toss of M breaking the previous school record set in 1996 by Oscar Duncan. His mark now ranks Ugis as the 7 th best so far this season for the NCAA. Ugis is from Kuldiga, Latvia (Murjanu Sport Gymnasium). During the indoor season Svazs, also a decathlete, posted a February win of 7.12 in the 60M. See nice picture of his winning toss with the link below: Ilva Bikanova of University of Connecticut is a junior and showing good competitive wins early this spring. She placed 1 st in the ECAC Championships in Boston with a height of 1.78m in the high jump. Later, she finished in third place during the New England Championships with a measurement of A couple of years ago she placed 14th in the High Jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Des Moines and accordingly, earned Second Team All-America honors. Bikanova becomes UConn's 13th high jumper to be named All-American. It also appears that her younger sister, Saija Bikanova has joined the UConn Track team as a jumper. In 2011 she was the Latvian national indoor champion in the long jump and the 2010 national champion in the pentathlon (I believe this would be for her age group or high school). A new comer is freshman Reinis Kregers, a decathlete for the Kansas State Wildcats. Earlier last week in Tucson, Kregers set two decathlon marks that rank among the best in school history. The freshman from Latvia had a strong mark in the shot put at meters ( /4) to rank seventh in school history. He followed that with the high jump that was tops for the competition and ranks ninth for a decathlon. He closed the day with a new personal best in the 400 meters clocking in at seconds. Reinis comes from Vecumnieki, Latvia. As a freshman, he took 5 th place in the Big 12 Indoor Conference meet in the Heptathlon with 5216 pts. vs. the winner who had 5858 pts. In high school, he set the Latvian junior national record for the indoor heptathlon with 5408 pts. and outdoor decathlon with 7639 pts. Karlis Daube of Western Kentucky University earned All-Sun Belt Conference honors in the 55-meter hurdles after a third place finish at the Sun Belt Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships with a 7.40 clocking and was also part of the third-place distance medley relay. He also posted a season-best 60-meter hurdle time of 8.04 seconds. Last year s outdoor season his best in the 400-meter

5 hurdles at the Sun Belt Conference meet was This year he has posted his best 400-meter hurdle time at the Hilltopper Relays at Kaspars Briska of Eastern New Mexico got 9 th place in the 3000 M Steeplechase at Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut CA with a time of 9:05 while a few weeks earlier, he ran his personal best of 9:04.71 at the Texas Relays qualifying him for the World Student Championships in Kazan, Russia. I see no other results currently for him as a middle distance runner. He has expressed high aspirations for making the 2016 Latvian Olympic Team in this event. Ieva Vitola represents Manhattan College in New York City in the sprints. It states that she won the Latvian Championships both indoors and outdoors (but I m uncertain of the category). Her personal bests are seconds in the 100 meters and seconds in the 200 meters. NEW NCAA LATVIAN COACHES Baiba Celma will make the transition from student-athlete to coach at Sacramento State University during the 2013 season. Celma will assist Terry Van Laningham with the Hornet jumpers and multi athletes. Celma capped her collegiate career by winning the heptathlon at the 2012 Big Sky Conference Championships. Her total of 5,279 points ranks second in school history and was the most by a Hornet since Celma set a series of Hornet records while at Sacramento and it s not clear whether she plans to continue to compete whilst coaching. Laura Igaune is in her first season as a graduate assistant coach at Tiffin University, Ohio. Igaune competed just one season for Western Kentucky University (2011) but made it a memorable one. She finished seventh at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships in the hammer. Igaune was the first female thrower in school history to earn All-American status. She won the hammer at the Outdoor Sun Belt Conference Championships, set the school record at 211 feet, five inches and was runner-up in the 20-LB weight at the Indoor Sun Belt Conference Championships. A native of Latvia, Igaune has a Bachelor's Degree in Physical Therapy and Health Care from Riga s Stradins University and a Master s Degree in Exercise Physiology from Western Kentucky. Igaune can lay claim to the Latvian Junior Championship title in the triple jump, multiple titles as Latvian National Champion in both the discus and hammer and still holds the Latvia national record in the hammer. She competed at the European

6 Championship in 2011, missing the qualifying standard for the 2012 London Olympics by two inches. ROWING University of Southern California s No. 1-ranked women's rowing team closed out the weekend with the team championship in hand at the 2013 Lake Natoma Invitational on Sunday, April 21. The Women of Troy won the varsity eight events and finished second in finals for the second varsity eight and the varsity four boats. The USC's Varsity Eight boat has been guided by the Number 8 seat Stroke junior from Latvia, Vineta Moca. The Trojans went head to head with second-ranked California and No. 8 Stanford down the 2000-meter course against a mild north-by-northwest crosshead wind. Sitting in the #4 was another Latvian, freshmen Madara Strautmane. Five other members of this boat are all recruits from Eastern Europe. Vineta Moca, now a junior, has been starting on the Varsity 8 since her second year at USC. In 2011Moca made an immediate impact rowing in every race for the Second Varsity Eight rowing from the eighth and fourth seats. She helped the Trojans to a fifth place finish at the NCAA Championships and a third place finish at the Pac-10 Champions and getting second team All American recognition last year. Moca rowed for the Latvian National Junior Team from , finishing in sixteenth place at the Junior World Rowing Championship in In 2010, she rowed for the Latvian National Team (U23) and secured eighth place at the U23 World Rowing Championship. She also raced at the 2010 Latvian National Championships placing first in the coxed four's, coxed two's and coxless fours. Her club squad was Majori. Moca graduated from Murjanu Sport Gymnasium and is an undeclared major at USC. Latvian, Ligita Kaviere, one of the top rowers in the history of the USC program, is in her fourth season as an assistant coach. In her first year as a full-time assistant coach in 2010, Kaviere helped lead USC to one of its best seasons in school history. Kaviere amassed many prestigious awards during her rowing career at USC including being named a Pocock All-American in 2006 and She was also named CRCA All-West Region First Team and Pac-10 All- Conference in 2006 and Kaviere rowed for the Latvian Olympic Union for three years in double scull In singles sculling Edgars Boitmanis has made a name for himself in America as one of the top scullers in the country representing Oklahoma City College. Edgars is a senior this year from Jurmala. His biggest victory was in 2010 as a

7 freshman winning the US Rowing Collegiate National Championships in Philadelphia. I have seen no results of Edgar s races this season as sculling generally competes outside most standard NCAA meets. But those of you with an interest in rowing keep an eye on Edgars who dreams of wearing the Latvian colors in the next Olympiad. WOW LATVIAN TENNIS? To my surprise, I found some unexpected tennis stars representing various schools around the country. Mikelis Libietis, trained under the tutelage of his father and Latvian tennis coach, Valdis Libietis while practicing almost daily with his older brother who first came to the states to play for Hawaii Pacific University. Mikelis got recruited by the University of Tennessee and during his first season he had an 8-1 singles record and 9-2 in doubles. His first career tournament, the Tennessee Fall Invitational, resulted in winning the singles and doubles titles in the top flight. He and fellow freshman Hunter Reese also captured the doubles title USTA/ITA Ohio Valley Regional Championship on their home courts. He is one of the promising young tennis talents in Latvia, having already represented his country in the Davis Cup last year. Last year Arturs Kazijevs of Southern Methodist University was named Conference USA co-freshman of the Year in tennis. He was also selected to All- Conference USA Second Team for doubles and led the team in singles winning percentage with a 12-6 record. Germans Uglovs as a junior at Harding University in Arkansas has a consistent record of steady performance on the Harding team with a 14-7 singles record and 13-4 doubles. At Miami University Lina Liekite has been turning heads as an attractive star tennis player. The Liepaja s stellar play in Europe earned her the chance to come to the United States to study and play tennis. The sophomore she has impressive wins over several nationally ranked older players. She is very focused of helping her team at the ACCs title matches and the goal is to get to the NCAAs. The list of completive matches on her Miami U website is impressive. Zane Zarina is a sophomore for the Wake Forest Deacons in Winston Salem also playing in the competitive ACC Conference. She has achieved a peak WTA

8 ranking of No. 936 in the world and was ranked as high as No. 5 in the Latvian Under 18 rankings, No. 4 in the Under 21 rankings and No. 6 in the Latvian women's rankings. She has been a member of the Latvia National Team in both singles and doubles. She is from Jurmala. Greta Veinberga of St. Petersburg College has received the honor of making the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) 2012 All-America Teams for NJCAA/CCCAA tennis. She finished #3 in singles within the country, won Team M.V.P. and was named Female Athlete of the Year for SPC. Another attractive female athlete for those of you in the St Pete area to watch. Freshman Kristin Labeja is a regular contender on her Eastern Kentucky University team, currently undefeated and recently victorious of the Ohio Valley Conference for Women s Tennis. Her profile states Labeja plays a unique style of tennis and is one of the better doubles players on the team and should be near the top of the line-up in singles. She is from Riga. Sabina Mardarenko, a sophomore at Harding University in Arkansas repeats as a second team All-GAC honoree after pushing her career win total as an individual to nine in 2013 and has posted eight doubles wins over the last two seasons. She is from Adazi, Latvia, Stetson University s Diana Bukajeva earned her third career Atlantic Sun Women's Tennis Player of the Week honor as she guided the Hatters to a pair of conference wins last week. As a freshman in she and her partner beat doubles pairs from #2 Stanford and #18 USC. She is a junior from Riga. &SPSID=69249&BIO_PLAYER_ID=764600&KEY= Jana Luste is a sophomore member of the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) women's tennis team that captured its second consecutive Great West Conference title last season. Luste went 9-1 at fourth singles. She has also been as high as 22 in the Latvian national under 21 rankings and was a doubles semifinalist in the 2008 under 18 Latvian Indoor Championships. She is from Riga.

9 Ilga Racika-Racko, as an entering freshman playing tennis for Central Oklahoma College and is winning her share of meets in the MIAA Conference. She is from Riga, Latvia. Eduards Gusevs is a senior tennis player at West Virginia s Wesleyan College. Trina Slapeka a native of Jurmala joins Holy Names College as a Graduate Assistant. Trina is currently working towards her Master degree in business. She competed for Lindsey Wilson College where she competed on the tennis squad and earned her under-graduate degree. At LWC she was the NAIA Women s Tennis National Championship Semi Finalist 2009, Mid-South Conference Player of the Year 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and an NAIA All-American First-Team 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 all while remaining on the Dean s list 2010, 2011, 2012 At Chicago State University s women's tennis team Ruta Grinvalde also is a steady performer. She is from Cesis, Latvia and TWO SISTER GOLFERS AT TEXAS STATE The Puisite sisters are attracting a lot of attention in the golf world from Texas State University in San Marcos, TX, outside of Austin. Krista Puisite, a senior, has a decorated collegiate career both athletically and academically. She has been named WAC Golfer of the Week on three occasions this season. Last season, Puisite was the recipient of the 2012 Southland Conference Student-Athlete of the Year averaging a stroke average, which amounted for the best in school history, while also maintaining a 3.88 GPA. As for her other accomplishments this season, Krista currently leads the country in birdies, with 100, and is ranked 31st in the nation among women collegiate golfers, according to golfweek.com. At the age of nine, Puisite s father introduced her and her younger sister Mara, now also a junior golfer for Texas State, to the game by buying them their first golf clubs as a Christmas present. Puisite began playing competitive golf at the age of 13, entering the European Junior Golf Tour. At the age of 16, during the Doral Publix Junior Golf Classic in Miami, Texas State coach Mike Akers foresaw glimpses of Puisite s golfing potential.

10 Younger sister Mara is gathering all sorts of accolades Oak - Farms Academic Achievement Award Cream of the Crop Academic Award 4.00 semester GPA Dean s List (fall 2011) Had one top ten finish, placing eighth at the BYU Entrada Classic, the Bobcats third win of the year, over No. 9 Oklahoma State. Has a stroke average Low round was a 72, done twice this season Placed T-26th at the NCAA Regional in Columbus, Ohio. Both girls are big fans of professional Latvian golf player Natalie Gulbis and by the looks of it, might have a shot at the pro circuit in the near future. BASKETBALL PLAYERS TO WATCH FOR NEXT YEAR Briefly, whilst browsing for spring sports, I spotted the following Latvians playing basketball at various levels in the NCAA this last year. Anete Steinberger, a 6 2 forward of the University Texas El Paso (UTEP) was had a great senior year and was picked several times as the Player of the Week in Conference USA. Just last week, she signed a contract to play for Belgian club Castors Braine. Steinberga, a psychology major with a cumulative GPA of 3.37 who earned placement on the Conference USA Commissioner's Academic Honor Roll four times, will graduate from UTEP in May before embarking on her professional career. Steinberga appeared in 106 games, including 87 starts, finishing her career as one of four players in program history with more than 1,000 points (1,024) and at least 570 rebounds (582). She holds sixth on the UTEP career rebounding charts while checking in eighth in scoring. She was a starter for the squad which won both the 2012 Conference USA regular-season and tournament championship and set a school and league record for victories (29). Overall the Miners won 83 games during her career, the second-highest sum in a four-year span at the institution. Steinberga had a banner senior season in , earning first-team All-Conference USA honors while establishing a school record for consecutive double-digit scoring games (23) and double-figure scoring contests in a season (29). She is from Ikskile, Latvia. Ilze Gotfrida will be a senior next year and was a consistent scoring forward for Saint Joesph s University of Philadelphia. She competed for Latvia at the 2011 FIBA U-20 European Championships in Serbia, averaging 3.7 points, and 3.6 rebounds and played for her country's under-16 and under-18 squads.

11 Edgars Elitism is a 6 8 junior for Florida Tech averaging 6.5 pig while being the team s leading rebounder. Oto Osenieks, also a 6 8 sophomore is a member of the University of Minnesota Gophers basketball team. He averaged 1.4 points off the bench this last season. Oto played for the Latvian National Team in the under 18 European Championships in 2008 and the under 20 European Championships. Martins Abele is a 7 1 center for Duquesne basketball team in Pittsburg. He hails from Saldus, Latvia Jvc/