May 29, 2009

Center Valley, Pa.--Cate Sheerin, a rising junior on the Navy women's swimming team, recently received the Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year Award from the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. The resident of College Park, Md., was presented the award by Archbishop Donald Wuerl at the 64th Annual Archdiocese of Washington Office of Youth Ministry / Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) Awards Banquet.

The award is presented annually to an individual who has been involved in Archdiocesan CYO athletic programs, is currently excelling in athletics at the college level, serves as a Christian example to the Catholic youth in their sport and is a positive role model. Sheerin is just the second Naval Academy recipient of the award, and the first since Roger Staubach was the inaugural winner of the award in 1965. Additional past winners of the award include John Thompson (1968), Austin Carr (1970), Tom McMillen (1973) and Johnny Dawkins (1984).

Sheerin attended St. Mark's the Evangelist elementary school in Hyattsville, Md., where she played CYO soccer for eight years. After graduating from the school in 2003, she went on to attend St. John's College High School in Washington, D.C., and earned four varsity letters as a member of the swimming team. The captain of the swimming team during her senior year, Sheerin set four school records, earned a trio of all-county accolades and competed at the National Catholic Swimming Championship during the course of her prep career. She would graduate as the school's Salutatorian in 2007.

A member of the Navy swimming team as both a freshman and sophomore, Sheerin has scored points for the Mids in both butterfly events at the 2008 and `09 Patriot League Championship. Her best finish in an event at the meet was a seventh-place showing in the 200 fly at this year's championship. She has posted career-best clockings of 57.15 and 2:06.16 in the 100 and 200 fly events, respectively, at Navy.