Deana Caruso named all-conference first team; gets academic honors with brother Devon

CORVALLIS, ORE.–The Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) named 2019 Pomeroy graduate Deana Caruso one of Lewis Clark State College's selections to First-Team, All-Conference for Women's Golf last week.

Caruso, a sophomore, and junior golfer Alexandra Schmidt joined the team's top golfer, Lauren Hamm, on the first-team, along with Carlos Davila, from the Men's program. Hamm was named the CCC Golfer of the Year.

The CCC uses the three regular-season conference tournaments held in the spring as well as the postseason conference tournament to determine the Player of the Year and all-conference selections. A men's golfer must participate in at least nine rounds and a women's golfer must play in at least six rounds to be eligible. All rounds they played in the conference tournaments are then added together and an average score is used to determine the top seven male and female golfers who receive first-team all-conference honors.

Hamm entered the final round of the conference tournament trailing by two strokes in the POY race but matched par with a 72 and won the honor by a stroke over Payton Hamm of Oregon Tech.

Schmidt and Caruso gave LC three women's players on the all-conference team, which tied Oregon Tech for top honors. Schmidt wound up fifth in the conference POY standings with an average score of 80.8, while Caruso tied for the seventh spot at 81.

Caruso, and her brother Devon, a 2018 graduate of Pomeroy High, were named to U.S. Bank Academic All-Cascade Conference honors. To earn recognition as a CCC scholar-athlete, a student must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.2 and be at least a sophomore in standing.

Also named to the academic honors was former Pirate sprinter Nikki Halbert, a sophomore at LCSC. In the indoor season this year finished third in the 200m dash (26.97) at the Polar Vortex Classic, fourth in the 60m dash (8.28) and is a member of the 4x400m relay team (4:39.52).