ASU's Johnson named finalist for Honda-Broderick Cup

June 18, 2008

After capping her collegiate career in record fashion last week in Des Moines, Iowa, with her fourth heptathlon crown at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, Arizona State University track and field standout <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/johnson_jacquelyn00.htm… Johnson</a> has been announced as one of five finalists for the Honda-Broderick Cup, which is presented annually to the Collegiate Woman of the Year. The Honda Sports Award recipient for track and field this year, Johnson ended her time in the Valley of the Sun with seven individual national crowns to her credit.<separator></separator>The only four-time outdoor heptathlon national champion in NCAA history, the Yuma, Ariz., native also is just the fourth woman in NCAA history to win the same event four times in a career. Johnson scored 6,053 points at the most recent meet to win her seventh national title in a row after taking second in the indoor pentathlon as a true freshman in 2004. Johnson was been voted as the top female collegiate track and field athlete in the nation by the Senior Women's Administrator's (SWA) at over 1,000 NCAA member schools as part of the Collegiate Woman Sports Award program. By receiving the Honda Sports Award, Johnson was one of 12 finalists for the Cup before it was cut down to the Top 5.<separator></separator>A key reason the Sun Devil women have won the last three NCAA team championships (2007 and 2008 indoor and 2007 outdoor), her win indoors this season came with a collegiate record point total of 4,496 points while her score of 6,307 points at the Pac-10 Championships not only won her third heptathlon crown at the conference level, but also established the Pac-10 and ASU records while placing her third on the all-time list in NCAA history. She was named the 2008 Pac-10 Female Athlete of the Meet in Tempe as she not only won the heptathlon crown, but also placed second in the 100m hurdles, second in the long jump, third in the javelin and tied for seventh in the high jump to accumulated 33.5 of the team's 186.5 points en route to its third Pac-10 team title in a row. The 2008 USTFCCCA West Region Female Field Athlete of the Year, Johnson graduated from ASU with a degree in Kinesiology and is currently pursuing a place on the U.S. Olympic Team in the heptathlon, where her point total currently ranks first among Americans and eighth in the world.<separator></separator>Johnson is the first Sun Devil to win the Honda Sports Award for track and field after being only the fourth finalist for the award. The three other finalists included current teammate <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/stevens_sarah00.html">S… Stevens</a> in 2007, Maicel Malone in 1991 and Gea Johnson in 1990. In the 32 years the Award has been handed out, Johnson is the 10th member of a Pac-10 school to garner the honor, joining four winners from UCLA, two from both Arizona and USC and one from Oregon.<separator></separator>The Honda-Broderick Cup winner will be announced on June 23 inside the Low Library on the Columbia University campus in New York.<separator></separator>2008 Honda Sports Award Winners Basketball - Candace Parker (Tennessee) • Field Hockey - Rachel Dawson (North Carolina) • Golf - Amanda Blumenherst (Duke) • Softball - Angela Tincher (Virginia Tech) • Track & Field - <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/johnson_jacquelyn00.htm… Johnson</a> (Arizona State) • Cross Country - Sally Kipyego (Texas Tech) Soccer - Ashlee Pistorius (Texas A&M) Volleyball - Foluke Akinradewo (Stanford) Swimming/Diving - Caroline Burckle (Florida) Gymnastics - Katie Heenan (Georgia) Lacrosse - Hanna Nielsen (Northwestern) Tennis - Amanda McDowell (Georgia Tech) • Selected as one of the FInal Five<separator></separator>