EVERETT – When they were first hired to take over the Everett Community College softball team four years ago, co-head coaches Mandi Johnson and Randy Smith looked around at the athletes and then at the equipment.
Finally they looked at each other, neither one knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Back then, Johnson said, “there wasn’t a whole lot of a program. There were just some kids who happened to be going to school and they kind of came out to play.”
The team, Smith added in understatement, “wasn’t going in the right direction.”
Johnson and Smith – longtime friends and coaching partners – set out to restore Everett softball, which had been birthed only a few seasons before. They went from high school to high school, meeting with coaches and prospective players, and they sold themselves as coaches and their shared vision of Everett becoming, as Johnson said, “a top-notch program.”
And, because hard work is usually rewarded, their fortunes began to turn.
Everett started to win and those wins have kept coming, this year in record numbers. The Trojans closed their regular season last weekend by winning three of four games, improving their overall record to 44-10 and clinching the school’s first Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges (NWAACC) North Division softball championship.
Next up is the annual NWAACC tournament, held this year in Portland, Ore. Everett, which is in the double-elimination tourney for the fourth straight year, is one of 16 teams in the field and one of perhaps a half-dozen with a realistic chance at the league championship.
“I wouldn’t consider us the favorites,” said Smith, who cited teams such as Oregon powers Mount Hood and Clackamas, as well as defending NWAACC champion Lower Columbia. “But we feel we have as good a chance as anybody.”
The Trojans boast a powerful offensive squad, with eight regular players batting .325 or better. Leading that bunch is third baseman Jamie Foote, a sophomore from Mountlake Terrace High School who was the North Division MVP a year ago and probably will repeat this season, too. Foote, a powerful left-handed swinger, batted .540 this season with 29 extra-base hits in 48 games, including a team-best 17 home runs. She finished with 71 RBI and a whopping slugging percentage of 1.056, also team highs.
“You cannot stop talking about Jamie,” Johnson said. “She is so talented. She’s got (NCAA Division I) written all over her.”
Other offensive standouts include sophomore center fielder Dani Monson from Marysville-Pilchuck High School, who batted .512 and swiped 54 bases in 55 attempts; and sophomore second baseman Megan Monaghan from Mount Baker High School, who batted .433 with 12 home runs.
Pitching, meanwhile, was shared by four players, with sophomore right-hander JoJo Palmer from San Bernardino, Calif., leading the staff with an 18-7 record and a 2.57 ERA. Sophomore right-hander Robyn Schlins from Sitka, Alaska, was 12-0 with a 1.44 ERA.
The Trojans were 29-20 a year ago and this season’s improvement is largely because “everybody demands more of themselves,” said Foote, a co-captain. “We also have more depth in our pitching, and pretty much everyone through our lineup hits the ball consistently, which was something we lacked last year, too.”
“We have a lot of talent on our team, and we go deep,” agreed Monaghan, the other co-captain. At the upcoming tournament, she added, “I think we can take first, I really do.”
Though Johnson and Smith focus their recruiting on top high school prospects, mostly along the I-5 corridor, they sometimes get players who went to four-year colleges and then transferred. Two examples on this year’s team are Monson, who played last season at Kent State University, and Palmer, who attended William Penn University.
Regardless of the player, the recruiting approach is the same, Johnson said.
“There’s not a stereotype of the kind of kid we look for,” she explained. “We recruit those kids that we know are going to fit with our program because they work hard. … We do the same kind of things in recruiting that a four-year school is going to do, because that’s what makes for a good, established program that’s going to have longevity.”
That said, Johnson and Smith are also open to kids who love softball, but maybe were less than All-Stars in high school.
“We’re never going to turn away a student-athlete that wants to come out and contribute,” Smith said. “That’s just not in our makeup. If they’re a good kid, if they can contribute and if they want to be a part of something … we want them to know there’s always a place to play.”
Most community colleges face athletic funding issues, of course, and Everett is no different. The program has a bare-bones budget, which is why Johnson and Smith expect their athletes to participate in fundraising efforts. Those efforts raised around $20,000 last year, which helped pay for equipment and travel expenses, including a fun trip to Arizona for a preseason tournament.
As for scholarships, community colleges this year could offer only $200 a quarter, or less than one-quarter of tuition. Next year, under new NWAACC guidelines, that figure will jump to around $560 a quarter, or more than half of tuition.
Which means community college athletes can get two years of schooling with financial help and, at Everett, a solid softball experience.
Or as Johnson said, “You can get a complete package when you come here now.”
Though the program has reached new heights this season, Smith sees an even brighter future.
“NWAACC championships are definitely in our sights,” he said. As co-head coaches, he went on, “we’re not here for a short-term fix. We definitely want to put our stamp on this program for a long time to come.”
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