Cathy Johnson Evans, who helped the Western Washington University softball team to the NAIA national championship in 1998, has been inducted into the WWU Athletics Hall of Fame.
The Hudson’s Bay High School graduate was one of four to formally enter the Hall on Saturday, bringing its total membership to 117.
A member of Western’s All-Century softball team, Johnson Evans played catcher and first base on the 1998 Viking squad that won the NAIA national championship, the school’s first national title in any sport.
She was named WWU Female Athlete of the Year for 1997-98 and earned NAIA national all-tournament recognition.
As a junior that season, Johnson Evans hit .401 (59 for 147), batting in 44 runs with 18 doubles and three home runs, all team highs. She scored 27 runs and had a squad-best .585 slugging percentage with eight game-winning hits. Johnson Evans committed just eight errors in 264 chances (.970) and took part in eight double plays.
A two-time NAIA Pacific Northwest Sectional all-star and three-time all-league selection, Johnson Evans set 12 school career records, with marks for runs batted in (104), doubles (38), home runs (6) and slugging percentage (.481).
Johnson Evans led the Vikings in hitting as a sophomore with a .381 average, hitting in a school-record 13 consecutive games.
After graduating from Western in 1999 with a degree in anthropology, Johnson Evans was the head coach for one year at Skagit Valley Community College and an assistant coach in charge of hitting for five seasons at Virginia.
She currently conducts hitting clinics while raising two sons with husband, Michael, in Decatur, Georgia. Michael, also a Western graduate, is a political science professor at Georgia State.
Clark College honors Owens, Simmers
Derek Owens and Deborah Simmers have been honored as Clark College Athletes of the Month for December 2010, the school announced.
A freshman from Tempe, Ariz., Owens was averaging 4.5 assists a game during Clark’s 7-4 start. He also posted a grade point average of 3.88 during fall quarter, placing him on the honor roll of Clark’s Vice President of Instruction.
Simmers, a freshman from Anchorage, Alaska, averaged 14 points, six rebounds, three assists and 2.6 steals in the team’s first 11 games. Simmers posted a 3.0 GPA while taking 17 credits during the fall quarter.
NNU honors Miller for shot put record
Vancouver Christian High School graduate Grant Miller was named Northwest Nazarene University’s Athlete of the Week for the week of Jan. 23-29 after establishing a new school record in the shot put at the Bronco Open in Nampa, Idaho. His mark of 58 feet, 8 inches broke the former record of 56-10¼ and is a provisional qualifying distance for the NAIA indoor track and field championships.
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