Post Falls runner, local softball standout earn collegiate postseason honors

Two Kootenai County athletes added postseason hardware at the collegiate level, with Post Falls graduate Annastasia Peters racing for Utah in the NCAA First Round and Coeur d’Alene High and North Idaho College alum Kristine Schmidt earning NAIA All-America recognition for Oregon Tech.

Peters, listed by Utah as a distance runner, finished 29th overall in the women’s 10,000-meter run at the NCAA First Round in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on May 28. She crossed in 34 minutes, 14.91 seconds, a mark that did not send her on to the national meet in Eugene, Oregon, but still reflected a major step for a runner from Post Falls High School. Utah’s roster notes that Peters had already made postseason inroads by placing 16th in her first NCAA West Regional 10,000 meters in 34:40.36. Her TFRRS profile shows a collegiate best of 32:45.80, set at the Stanford Invitational on April 3-4, 2026.

Schmidt’s season brought a different kind of recognition, but one that landed just as squarely on the regional stage. The Cascade Collegiate Conference announced June 2 that Schmidt was named to the third team of the 2026 NAIA Softball All-America teams, one of just four athletes from four CCC schools to earn All-America honors. Oregon Tech lists Schmidt, a 5-foot-4 junior right-handed pitcher from Coeur d’Alene, as a transfer who spent two seasons at North Idaho College, where she combined for 32 victories.

Her résumé at NIC already included NWAC East Region Pitcher of the Year and NFCA NWAC All-America honors in 2024, followed by all-Scenic West Athletic Conference honors in 2025. At Oregon Tech, Schmidt was named Cascade Conference Pitcher of the Week three times in 2026, including after an April 13 outing against No. 5 Southern Oregon when she threw a two-hit shutout, struck out 11 and picked up what was then her league-best 15th win.

By the time Oregon Tech announced its postseason awards on May 4, the program had already clinched its fifth straight Cascade Conference regular-season title, finished 40-6, and earned its 14th straight NAIA Tournament berth. Schmidt entered that tournament at 18-4 with a 1.73 ERA and 151 strikeouts, numbers that helped define a season in which local talent from Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene kept showing up on bigger college stages.