Big Bend sophomore Miranda Johnson team clown, on-court killer

COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
Connor Vanderweyst

MOSES LAKE ­— Don’t be fooled by Miranda Johnson’s “team clown” moniker.

Big Bend athletic director Mark Poth described the sophomore guard as the homecoming queen that wrecks opponents on the court. That competitive edge comes natural to Johnson, who made multiple game-winning shots for Big Bend during her freshman season.

Balance.

Knowing when to cut the tension and when to focus.

It’s what makes good teams great.

“She just understands the balance that’s great for an athlete to have,” head coach Preston Wilks said. “She’s not too over the top, you know, but she’s not too frivolous either. She just has a perfect balance, I would say, of enjoying the game, enjoying the chance to play, and the team environment, but she also knows how to be a cold, stone killer too as far as hitting big shots at the end of the game or coming up huge in big games for us.”

And to think, Johnson was a student at Utah State University her first year out of high school. Her basketball career at Olympus in Salt Lake City, Utah was done. All that was left was to earn a degree and enter the dreaded space known as “real life.”

A fortuitous phone call changed everything.

“I decided that I missed basketball so much and somehow Coach Wilks got my number and talked to him, talked to some of the players here and I just felt like I should come and I have loved it here,” Johnson said.

Coaching roots stretch far and wide.