Douglas High has 17 collegiate athlete signees

Douglas High School honored 17 student-athletes on Thursday who plan to compete at the collegiate level net school year.

In total, the Tigers had three athletes sign at the Division I level; one at D-II; two at D- III; one for the NAIA; and also had 10 junior college signees.

DIVISION I

• Giana Zinke will head to Manhattan University to compete with the Jaspers women’s golf program. She plans to major in psychology.

“I was kind of like, ‘Man, I don't know about Manhattan.’ It’s just really far away. Then I went and visited and just really liked the campus, and I really liked the coach and like everything about it just felt like it kind of spoke to me in a way,” said Zinke. “It was like, ‘Wow, how many people get to go actually like play DI golf in New York City?’ So I feel like I just I had to take that opportunity.”

• Stella White will head just up the road to Reno to compete in the pole vault at Nevada. White said she wants to go into political science with plans on studying law after getting her undergraduate degree.

“I'm super excited to go to UNR. I've been wanting to go since I started doing track and I've worked really hard to be able to do college athletics, so it feels really fulfilling,” said White. “My junior year, when I was vaulting pretty close to the school record and looking at kind of what UNR was vaulting and the other colleges around, I realized like, I actually had a shot of maybe continuing.”

• Luke Davis will continue his track and cross country careers at Saint Mary’s in Moraga, Calif. Davis said he is still deciding on what he wants to study, but expressed interest in kinesiology or sports psychology.

“During most of my cross country season, I was barely talking to anybody, like super small schools. Then after state, I had kind of a breakout race at state. (I) ran a 16:09 on the state course and then they (Saint Mary’s) reached out to me after state. I went on my visit in January and then I just fell in love with it,” said Davis. “It means a lot. I’ve been thinking about running D-I since I started my running career and started running competitive in sixth grade. It’s a dream come true and seeing everybody else, especially 17 signees, is insane.”

DIVISION II

• Kolton Zinn will head over the Sierra to compete in collegiate wrestling at Cal Poly Humboldt. Zinn said he wants to study fire sciences when he steps on campus. He will be accompanied by 2024 Douglas High School graduate Sage Adie, who transferred into the wrestling program this offseason.

“It just kind of validates all the hard work I've put in, all the sacrifices I've made for the sport and getting better. It’s just really rewarding for myself,” said Zinn. “It was pretty hard honestly to get into a college and go about all that (recruiting) and I'm really lucky to have coaches that helped me along the way.”

DIVISION III

• Madison Frisby will continue her golf career at Southern Virginia University. Frisby said she plans on studying elementary education with hopes of becoming a kindergarten teacher. Her brother will join her on campus as well.

“We've worked so hard to be able to go to college to play golf. So when the school reached out to me, I immediately knew that I liked it,” said Frisby. “It's something I worked for, like my whole life. Like, I've been golfing since I was super little, so the fact that I got to be able to like continue in college is such a huge blessing and I'm very grateful and I'm excited to see what comes out of it.”

• Cam McLelland will head to Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio where she will continue playing softball. McLelland anticipates doing a double major between civil engineering with a focus in environment and business management. 

“Before I was coming into high school I was looking at major D-1s. Fracturing my back, it opened my eyes to how important academics are for me and how I wanted to pursue academics. I’d been trying to find that perfect fit of a school,” said McLelland. “It really makes it feel earned. It allows me to know that like when I put hard work into something, good things come about. It also tells like future generations, ‘hey, put the effort in. Do that extra mile. Don't worry about what it could have been and be like, no, this is what I did.’”

NAIA

• Brenton Weston, football, Southern Oregon

JUNIOR COLLEGE

• Brent Faiss, baseball, Diablo Valley College

• Tyler Sentell, baseball, Diablo Valley College

• Duncan DeLange, baseball, Butte College

• Sumer Williams, beach volleyball, Feather River College

• Ashlyn Greenfield, basketball, Sierra College

• Evan Tolbert, basketball, Palo Verde College

• Jeffrey Peters, baseball, College of Southern Nevada

“It means a lot for me. Like, years of hard work and dedication to baseball. Like the last 12, 13 years, just be able to finally have this moment for myself, it means a lot to me,” said Peters.

• Jackson Ovard, football, Feather River College

“It makes me happy to be able to feel that I am going to be able to take my talents to the next level because of how hard I worked,” said Ovard. “If you’re not out there 30 minutes before practice or after, you’re not going to succeed. … I don’t want to thank just my parents, I want to thank their parents as well for not only raising such great kids, but without them we wouldn’t be here right now.”

• Caden Martin, football, Feather River College

“It’s a big inspiration to my younger self, knowing that all the years and hours of hard work is actually getting put to good use,” said Martin. “Playing a position that isn’t as well known as long snapper, bringing light to how important it is to a game. It’s just really important to me to be able to go out there and show kids it’s not always about playing every single snap of the game and getting your name in the paper. It’s just about helping the team in any way that you can.”

• Caden Thacker, basketball, De Anza College

“Words can’t describe. I mean, my goal in my whole life was just to go to the next level, get somewhere, just play at the next level and now I’m here,” said Thacker.