Kim Erikson to play ball in Kentucky

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Eighteen-year-old softball sensation Kim Erikson is off to Mid-Continent College in Kentucky on a scholarship to play softball for their championship team.

"I'm really excited but nervous and anxious too," said Erikson, who has been playing softball since the age of five.

The daughter of Darlene and Lonnie Erikson, Kim, who is a member of the Hesquiaht First Nation, has been playing softball for Nanaimo for the past two years, usually in the positions of shortstop and second base.

She won a gold medal playing for Team B.C. at the 1997 North American Indigenous Games in Victoria, and is excited about joining a championship-winning team in Kentucky.

The Mid-Continent College Lady Cougars softball team won the 2002 Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular season title and finished as runner-up in the KIAC tournament.

The team then won the Region XII tournament in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and competed in the NAIA national tournament. The Lady Cougars finished seventh in the 2002

National Christian College Athletic Association nationals and sixth in the NCCAA's 2001 national tournament.

The Cougars teams are comprised of a mixture of standouts who have graduated from high schools throughout the region and those who have come to play from other states and countries.

Mid-Continent College is a four-year, co-educational institution, fully accredited to confer bachelor's degrees in a variety of majors and minors. The college has a long tradition of educating students for Christian leadership and service around the world.

Kim Erikson intends to acquire an education degree as she hopes to eventually become an elementary school teacher.