Lawrie makes history at U of W

Danielle Lawrie

By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

he Washington Huskies football team
may have scored a history-making
upset against the USC Trojans last
week, but the school’s best athlete doesn’t
compete on the gridiron.

No, it is on the softball field where
Langley superstar pitcher Danielle Lawrie
has established herself as one of the best
college athletes on the planet.

Lawrie, who is entering her senior year
with the University of Washington, led U of
W to a national championship at the College
World Series in Oklahoma City, the school’s
first ever. She dominated the tournament,
going 5-1 and even hitting a game winning
grand slam and it all culminated last week
at the Huskies football game, where she and
the rest of the Huskies softball team were
presented with their national championship
rings and where Lawrie was awarded the
Honda Sports Trophy as the NCAA’s top
female athlete among 12 different sports and
the 2009 USA Softball player of the year
award.

It has been a tremendous year for
Lawrie, who captains the Huskies. She’s
played for Team Canada in some capacity
since she was 15 years old, she was the MVP
of the 2006 Canada Cup, where Canada won
a silver medal, and suited up at the 2008
Summer Olympics in Beijing. That forced
her to redshirt her Huskies 2008 campaign,
but she was back with a vengeance in 2009,
her junior season. She finished up the year
with a ridiculous 37-7 record to push her
total to 91-36, pitched a pair of no-hitters and

 

set an all-time strikeout record with 472. Her
ERA was a miniscule 0.84 and she has one
of the most feared changeups in the sport.

2009 wasn’t just about winning a major
championship for Lawrie, even though that’s
more than most could ask for, it was also
about making history. She blew away six U
of W records this season (wins, strikeouts,
shutouts, innings pitched, compete games
and starts).

Consider this: Since she arrived in
Washington, Lawrie has set and re-set the
all time school mark for strikeouts each
year. Right now, with a career total of 1,316
strikeouts after just three seasons (which
has already surpassed legendary American
pitcher Jennie Finch) Lawrie is already
ranked 15" on the all time NCAA strikeout
list.

Lawrie’s season was marked by her
remarkable performance in back-to-back
games on May 17 against UMass, where she
played both games and threw an inhuman
395 pitches in one day. The second game, an
essential one for the Huskies to stay in the
playoff race, lasted five and a half hours and
went an incredible 15 innings. The Huskies
eventually prevailed 6-1 behind Lawrie’s
marathon effort.

There’s no limit to how many
records will fall in Lawrie’s senior year
with Washington. She rightly received
a thunderous ovation from 70,000-plus
football fans at Husky stadium and with
Lawrie on the mound and leading the team,
there’s no telling how far the Huskie’s will
go this year.

 

The ‘Other News

Printers gets second chance with Lions

 

Casey Printers

By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

Ts BC Lions just proved that
almost anything is possible in
the world of professional sports.
Despite a prolonged and messy falling
out several years ago, Casey Printers is
once again a member of the BC Lions.

Just a few months ago, the mere
suggestion of Printers joining the Lions
seemed ludicrous. After all, isn’t this the
same Casey Printers who, after winning
the CFL MVP award back in 2004,
caused a distracting and eventually
disastrous quarterback controversy with
Dave Dickenson? Isn’t this the guy who
spurned a three-year, $1 million contract
offer from the Lions, split the locker
room in half and then bolted to the
NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs at the earliest
opportunity?

Well, yes and no. Since leaving
Vancouver, Printers has had a few
humbling experiences to say the least.
He completely flamed out with the
Chiefs and got cut before the regular
season even began. He then spent 2006
and 2007 on the Chiefs practice roster
before washing out of the NFL in late
2007.

Just a few days after getting
released by Kansas City, Printers signed
a mega-deal (at least by CFL standards)
with the perennially horrible Hamilton
Tiger-Cats. Hamilton made him the
highest paid player in the CFL, signing
him to a reported $500,000 per year
pact. However, with a terrible supporting
cast, Printers lasted just five months with
the Tiger-Cats before getting released
and effectively becoming a free agent
that wasn’t exactly arousing too much
interest, especially after Hamilton started
their current campaign off better then
they had in years.

Rumours persisted all summer
that Printers might make a return to
B.C., but the logical evidence suggested
otherwise. It was widely assumed that

Printers had long since burned his
bridge with Lions’ GM and head coach
Wally Buono. Plus, B.C. was already
considered to be deep at quarterback
with co-starters Buck Pierce and Jarious
Jackson.

Then however, a funny thing
happened. The Lions bombed to start
the season, and the play of both Pierce
and Jackson was average at best. The
frequently injured Pierce, who has
proven over the years to be one of those
guys who does a decent job but not
much more than that, suffered another
concussion and Jackson didn’t exactly
step up and steal the starting job.

Then, when Jackson went down
with a rotator cuff injury that is expected
to sideline him for the remainder of
the season, Buono went to Printers.
Pierce was activated and led the Lions
to a win against the terrible Toronto
Argonauts, but his performance wasn’t
exactly inspiring. Ticket sales for the
game, despite being held on a clear
Saturday night, plummeted from the
normal 32,000 or so to just 27,000. With
a 5-6 record, that number wasn’t exactly
surprising.

With Printers though, expect that to
change in a hurry. Love him or hate him,
this is a guy that can sell tickets. He’s a
proven commodity who can scramble
with the best of them and, despite their
assets, is miles beyond Pierce and
Jackson in terms of talent.

Printers said all the right things
when he arrived in Vancouver. In a
candid interview with the TEAM 1040,
Printers talked about how lucky he
was to receive another opportunity and
about how he didn’t care if he started or
backed up, he was just glad to be here.

Hopefully, Printers has turned a
corner. With his ability on the field, if he
can learn to be a good teammate, as he’s
promised he has, then the Lions can do
great things.

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