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NPU Banquet Honors Athletes of the Year
By Craig Pinley
CHICAGO, IL (May 5, 2004) - Track and field athlete Will Mejia and softball
player Kim Walker were named Senior Male and Female Athletes of the Year
for North Park University (NPU) during an awards ceremony held at Viking
Hall.
Mejia was the indoor conference track and field shot put champion this
winter and has earned All-College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin
(CCIW) honors nine times. He also has the weight throw and the hammer
throw records at the school. An education major, Mejia earned a 3.0
grade point average on a 4.0 scale and has juggled student teaching and
his class responsibilities while competing this spring. He is one of the
favorites in the shot put at this weekend's conference track and field
meet.
Walker is at the top or near the top of almost all of NPU's hitting and
pitching records, said softball head coach Dan Gooris. She won 41 games
and struck out 306 opposing batters on the mound in four years for the
Vikings while setting school marks in homers (12) and runs batted in
(77). The CCIW Player of the Year as a freshman, she earned her third
All-CCIW award for her performance as a pitcher/third baseman for NPU
this spring.
North Park also honored Chris Edquist and Sarah Burnett respectively
with the Male and Female Sportsmanship awards. Edquist is a four-year
player for the men's basketball team who earned his team's Spirit Award
while compiling a 3.4 grade point average in Biology. Burnett was one of
the team captains for the women's soccer team and lettered in all four
years she played at the school.
A total of 39 athletes, including 21 four-year letter winners, were
honored by their coaches Monday night.
North Park's rowing, softball and golf teams have just completed their
seasons. The baseball team plays a conference series against North
Central College this weekend and the track and field program competes at
the CCIW track and field meet at Illinois Wesleyan University beginning
Friday. Following is a review of how North Park teams performed last week:
- Rowing: The women's novice four-person crew won their event at the
Mid-American Collegiate Rowing Association (MACRA) Championships last
weekend in Athens, Ohio, beating 11 others in the process. Coxswain
Erikka Treatch led her crew in the finals to a first-place finish over
competing crews from Northwestern University, John Carroll University of
Ohio and two boats from Duquesne University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Other members of the team included co-captains Annika Safstrom and Alli
Koubski, and sisters Cori and Becca Bowman.
- Golf: Matt Lindahl placed second and North Park University teammate
Peter Johnson was third individually as the Vikings placed fourth among
eight teams at last weekend's College Conference of Illinois and
Wisconsin (CCIW) golf championships at the Pontiac Elks Club. Lindahl
had a two-round score of 149 to finish one stroke behind individual
medallist Trent Martin of Augustana College. It was the second straight
year he has finished as the runner-up. Johnson shot a 151 for two rounds
as North Park shot a 628 as a team. Illinois Wesleyan won the team title
with a 618, while Augustana (623) and Millikin University (626) finished
second and third. Other North Park golfers competing last weekend
included Joel Youngberg and Seth Awes, who tied for 22nd with a two-day
score of 164, and Carl Edgren, who shot 176.
- Softball: At Wheaton College, the Vikings won their final game of
the 2004 season beating host Wheaton College 8-5 in the second of two
games played last Wednesday (April 28) to finish 11-25 overall. Walker
won the final game of her career on the mound with a complete game
eight-hitter and helped her cause with two hits and two runs scored.
Kelly Nelson was 3-for-3 with two runs batted in to pace the offense as
coach Dan Gooris' team finished 1-11 in College Conference of Illinois
and Wisconsin (CCIW) play. Nelson hit a two-run double and Angie Willner
added a run scoring double in a four-run second inning to get North Park
rolling offensively. Then Wheaton's defense faltered, helping the
Vikings score four unearned runs for the win. The Vikings had dropped
game one of the double header by a score of 10-7 despite a RBI single by
Deb Rusthoven and a two-run double by Stacy Salihovich. Along with
Walker and Willner, four-year letter winners Stephanie Thompson and
Carrie McKee closed out their North Park careers last week. Willner had
18 runs batted in this year while Thompson hit .283.
- Baseball: North Park dropped three games at Augustana College last
weekend, losing 9-0 and 3-2 on Saturday and 9-6 on Sunday. Jeff Hanson
pitched the middle game and got the loss despite allowing just seven
hits in eight innings and striking out eight. Augustana led 2-0 before
the Vikings tied the contest in the top of the fifth inning on the
strength of a run scoring single by Jose Morales. The home team took the
lead, however, on an unearned run in the bottom of the sixth inning. In
the final game of the weekend, Brandon McHugh had two RBI singles and
added a run scoring sacrifice fly in a losing cause.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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