Summer 2025
Things have grown fairly quiet around the Sparks Center since the end of the semester and graduation, but it was an exciting spring for many of our teams and student-athletes, and wrapped up another great year.
In the past few weeks, we had our Men’s Golf team compete at the NCAA Division III Golf Championships, and two Track & Field athletes compete at the NCAA Division III Track & Field Championships. Men’s Golf made the cut and finished in 17th place overall, with AJ Papajohn finishing as a top-20 individual. In Track & Field, Steeley Mucken placed fifth in the Javelin Throw to earn All-American honors, and Erica Snyder finished 17th in the High Jump.
Overall, this year we had sixty-five athletes earn all-conference recognition, and six Bearcats received player of the year honors in the Northwest Conference:
- Kai Brown was named Rookie of the Year in Men’s Basketball
- Oliver Smith was the Men’s Golf Player of the Year
- Lilly Bachiochi was the Offensive Player of the Year in Women’s Lacrosse
- Jay Shiflett earned Defensive Player of the Year honors in Women’s Lacrosse
- Kaleb McArthur was the Men’s Field Athlete of the Meet in Track & Field
- Ella Thompson was named Women’s Rookie of the Meet in Track & Field
In addition to being recognized for their accomplishments in sport, we also had fifty-one athletes receive Academic All-District honors from College Sports Communications (CSC), and fifty Bearcats were inducted into Chi Alpha Sigma, a national society that honors excellence in athletics and academics.
Willamette Athletics honored these student-athletes and more at our annual Bearcat Awards Show on Wednesday, April 30th. The event is an expanded version of the senior awards that formerly took place and honors our senior student-athletes and others across a variety of categories. You can find more information about this event, the winners in the evening, and even a video replay here.
A quick reminder about the Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony coming up in a few weeks as part of Alumni Reunion Weekend. The event will take place on Saturday, June 14th, at 1:30 pm in Hudson Hall as we induct former student-athletes Kim (Clarkson) Phillips, Michael Freeby, Fidel Gaviola, and Tyler May; former softball coach Damian Willliams; and members of the 2004 Men’s Track Field Team and the 1971-72 Men’s Basketball team.
For those of you looking to come to a game, our fall schedules are available now on our athletics website. Winter schedules should be posted soon as well, and spring schedules usually come out later this summer. We hope you are able to attend a game or two here on campus or join us on the road if we are coming to where you live. If you aren’t able to catch a game in person, you can follow most of our Bearcat teams on the Bearcat Network, our online broadcasts for the majority of our sports.
Speaking of our website, it will be going through a rebranding this summer, so expect an improved look and feel to wubearcats.com this fall. We hope to do a bit more video this coming year and work to highlight the great things our student-athletes are doing in their sports, as well as in the classroom and in our community.
We hope everyone has a fantastic summer, and, as always, Go Bearcats!
