James Baker — football
The Idaho Vandals faced a big challenge on Saturday against Orange Bowl runner-up Northern Illinois. Although they faced a tough team, they led 28-21 at halftime. A big reason they were ahead was because of running back James Baker’s two touchdown runs in the first half. Baker, a senior from Deerfield Beach, Fla., ended the game with three touchdowns, two of them on the ground and the other, his only reception of the day on a wheel route to the end zone. Baker had 110 yards of total offense for the Vandals.
Broc Westlake and Bradley Njoku — football
Sophomore Broc Westlake, a back-up linebacker for the Vandals, had a monster game against the Huskies of Northern Illinois. Westlake, a 6-foot-3-inch, 225-pound sophomore from Sparks, Nev., had seven tackles and one sack in the game. Njoku, a safety out of Leander, Texas, also had a big day in the defensive backfield. Njoku had a total of nine tackles in the game with eight of them being solo tackles. Both were an instrumental part of the Vandal defense that shut down opposing quarterback Jordan Lynch in the first half. The defense held Lynch to less than 100 yards passing in the first half.
Katie Baran — soccer
The Vandals had to battle back from two goals down Friday in their game against Eastern Washington. Katie Baran, a junior midfielder from Nine Mile Falls, Wash., helped start the comeback in the 79th minute by firing in a goal from 10 yards out. The goal was Baran’s first of the year. Hard work paid off for her as she had been playing stellar defense throughout the game. The Vandals ended up getting a spark from the goal and played hard in the last 11 minutes of the game. While they played more aggressively, they ultimately could not comeback from the early deficit and lost 2-1.
Meredith Coba — volleyball
The Idaho volleyball team left Boise with three wins and no losses in the Bronco Volleyball Classic over the weekend. Tournament MVP Meredith Coba, a sophomore setter from Salem, Ore., was a big reason for the Vandals’ success. Coba was the setter for a balanced Idaho offense that hit .309 in the tournament. Idaho was hitting .230 as a team heading into the week. Coba averaged 11.21 assists-per-set and added six kills and five blocks in 14 sets during the tournament. She also had a career-high 67 assists in Idaho’s victory over North Texas, while helping two Idaho hitters earn career-highs in kills and lead the team to a .389 hitting percentage.
“Obviously with Meredith being the MVP, a lot of that was because of her distribution,” Idaho coach Debbie Buchanan said. “Offensively our numbers wouldn’t have been that good if she wasn’t making some good decisions. You can’t have that without a good setter.”