Here is a round-up of some of the achievements of Sweet Home alums who are currently competing in sports at the collegiate level.
Basketball
Pacific University sophomore Brooke Burke appeared in 14 games this season, starting six, for the Boxers, averaging just over 12 points per game as she shot an even .333 from the field. She was also one of the top four three-point shooters on the team, finishing the season 14 for 40 for a 35% success rate and was a perfect 14-for-14 from the line, for the best free-throw percentage on the team.
Burke was Pacific’s leading scorer through mid-December, before she suffered a concussion against Western Oregon. She was back in action at the beginning of January, but “the concussion did set me back,” she said. “After I got released, my playing time went down. I’m very excited for next season.”
Pacific finished sixth in the NCAA Division III Northwest Conference, 11-14 overall, 7-9 in league, after winning its final two games.
Swimming
Malia “Josie” Hewitt, a senior at Colorado College, won the 100-yard Breaststroke championship, clocking 1:05.52, at the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships in Garland, Texas. She then finished second in the 200 Breaststroke, in 2:22.64, helping the Tigers to a second-place team finish.
Chloe Tyler, a junior at Illinois State, turned in a season’s best of 55.94 in the 100 Backstroke at the Missouri Valley Championships, held Feb. 26 – March 1 in Waukee, Iowa, earning an All-MVC honor for the second year in a row. She was also named to the 2025 MVC Scholar Athlete Team after recording a 4.00 GPA. Tyler was lead-off swimmer for the Redbirds’ school record-setting 400 Medley Relay team, swimming a 56.22 Backstroke leg.
Track and Field
Casey Tow, a senior at Grand Canyon University, won the eight-event heptathlon during the Western Athletic Conference Indoor Championships in Spokane, Wash., on March 1.
His performance helped the Lopes to their eighth men’s indoor title in nine years.
Tow posted four personal bests, one of them his points total, which was a school-record 5,576, in the win. The PRs came in the pole vault (16-1¾), the 1000 (2:42.47), and the 60-meter hurdles (8.37). His previous pole vault best going into the WAC Championships was 14-11½.
Tow spent the first two years of his college career at the U.S. Naval Academy before transferring to GCU, where he is majoring in business management.
Wrestling
Three ex-Huskies, Marissa Kurtz, Kobe Olson and Travis Thorpe, are graduating this year after successful college wrestling careers.
Marissa Kurtz, a senior at Southern Oregon University, qualified for nationals for the second year in a row after placing seventh at 116 pounds in last year’s NAIA Championships. This year Kurtz wrestled two matches at nationals to conclude her college career with a 53-38 record.
She ended her regular season by being voted a Cascade Conference Athlete of the Week on Feb. 17. She was one of nine automatic qualifiers for state as the Raiders won the Cascade Conference title. SOU placed seventh at nationals.
Kobe Olson, a senior at Eastern Oregon, finished 5-5 for his final season with the Mountaineers, winning the final match of his collegiate career with a fall at 141 pounds over Fahad Hillsland of Treasure Valley Community College on Eastern Oregon’s Senior Night on Jan. 31.
Olson spent his first three years of college at Umpqua Community College, beginning in 2017, wrestling for former Husky Kyle Temple before taking a “two- to three-year break” during which he worked and coached.
He returned to college at Eastern Oregon as a junior, and will complete a bachelor’s degree in fire service administration this spring. He has made the Dean’s List every term he’s been at EOU and has maintained close to a 4.00 GPA all of this year and most of last year, and was chosen as one of EOU’s 13 NAIA Men’s Scholar All-Americans, announced March 21. Recipients must meet both academic and athletic criteria to qualify for the award.
Travis Thorpe, a senior at Southern Oregon University, finished his college career with a 45-44 record, including qualifying last year for the NAIA championships at 149 pounds.
A four-year varsity wrestler, his last match was Feb. 8, winning at 149 pounds in the Raiders’ final dual of the season, against Eastern Oregon University. His freshman year 2020, was put on hold by COVID, so Thorpe’s final season was 2024-25.
Thorpe is an outdoor adventure leadership major who was a 2024 Academic All-American and was named Most Improved for the Raiders.
The resurgent Southern Oregon men’s wrestling team, for the first time since 2018, finished on top of the Cascade Conference, finishing 19-3 overall – a single-season record, and 11-1 against conference competition, nine of those against top-25 teams. SOU was ninth at nationals, half a point behind Corban, for its highest finish in eight years.
Ex-Huskies Paige Chafin, Kelsie Rush and Kyle Sieminski also wrestled collegiately this year.
Chafin, a sophomore at Linfield, saw her season end in November with a 4-2 record after she suffered an injury.
Rush, a sophomore at Linfield, had a tough season, finishing 1-19 for the Wildcats.
Sieminski, a freshman at Southern Oregon, was 10-4 early in the season, but did not complete the season due to academic reasons.
Missed in our winter alumni roundup:
Volleyball
Jamie Seward, is a junior at Division I Jacksonville (Fla.) University after playing her freshman and sophomore seasons at Austin Peay, where she competed both on the court and on the beach in volleyball.
Seward played beach volleyball last year for Jacksonville, but is not listed on this year’s roster for the Dolphins. Jacksonville’s indoor volleyball team finished 15-14 overall and 10-6 in the conference, ending its season with a 3-1 loss to No. 5 Eastern Kentucky in the Atlantic Sun Conference volleyball championship playoffs.