As athletes go, Megan Dawson’s path to Pearl River was not your usual one.

Most athletes are discovered at their high schools. Then-PRCC softball coach Laurie Neelis found Dawson playing travel ball. She was a pitcher and infielder.

“Coach Neelis recruited me from those travel teams,” said Dawson. “That’s how I got to Pearl River. Before that, I had never heard of the school.”

All Dawson, who graduated from Ursuline Academy in New Orleans in 2001, would do was carve her name into the PRCC record books.

As an all-state and all-region 23 softball player for the Wildcats from 2002-04, she batted .428. She was named to the 2003 NJCAA All-American squad her freshman year.

She was the second softball player inducted into the PRCC Sports Hall of Fame.

“This is a huge deal,” said Dawson. “I never thought in a million years I would receive this kind of honor. It just means all that hard work I went through has paid off.”