Hope College has a first team softball All-American.

Senior Kylee Brouwer of Hudsonville, Mich. (Hudsonville HS) was named to the 2008 Louisville Slugger/NFCA Division III All-America team Thursday prior to the start of the NCAA championships in Salem, Va.

Brouwer is being honored as a NFCA All-American for the second time in
her career. In 2006 she was named to the third team as a catcher.
This year she is being honored as the designated player, a position
she assumed a month into the season after suffering a hand injury and
subsequent infection that affected her ability to throw the softball.

The injury certainly didn't impact her ability to hold and swing the bat as she set a Hope single season batting average mark (.533) with a record 65 hits and on-base percentage (.567).

In the conference tournament she batted 10-for-14 to key Hope's advance to the championship game.

Brouwer set Hope career records for batting average (.457), on-base percentage (.515), games played/started (162/159), most hits (228), most doubles (41), most triples (22), most total bases (331), runs scored (168), and stolen bases (70).

Brouwer was able to balance her four-year softball career with the academic demands of being a nursing major.  She is pursuing a professional career as an emergency room nurse in Grand Rapids, Mich. and will be married later this summer to Kyle Zomerlei, also a 2008 Hope graduate.

A 3.76 GPA student, she has been named to the CoSIDA/ESPN Great Lakes Region All-Academic first team and is eligible for Academic All-America recognition. This spring sher received the college kinesiology department's Vanderbush Student-Athlete Award and the nursing department's Senior Sigma Xi Research Award.

Brouwer becomes the fourth Hope softball player to achieve All-America honors more than once joining Deb Vashaw (1992-93), Laurie Byington (1993-94-96), and Carrie Scott (1999-2001).

The list of Hope's softball All-Americans numbers 12 players -- Johanna Pscodna (1992, 2b); Deb Vashaw (1992-93, c); Laurie Byington (1993-94-96, cf); Nicki Mannes (1995, p); Keri Roelofs (1995, p); Amy Moeckel (1996, c); Wendy Moore (1996, if); Carrie Scott (1999-2001, c); Emily Adams (2005, ss); Jessica Regnerus (2005, cf); Candace Graham (2005, of) and Kylee Brouwer (2006-08, c).