Cross Country | 11/4/2015 2:38:00 PM
ABILENE – Abilene Christian women's cross country Wednesday received three of the four individual Southland Conference postseason trophies by vote of the league's head coaches.
Conference gold medalist and ACU junior Alexandria Hackett was named Athlete of the Year. Aubrey Till received Freshman of the Year honors and a spot on the honorable mention squad for placing 12th, and
Keith Barnier was selected Coach of the Year.
Junior Diana García Muñoz earned First Team All-Conference honors for the second straight season after placing fourth last Friday at the conference championship race, while a second team citation was presented to junior Michaela Hackett, who placed seventh out of 84 competitors.
Allie Hackett won the women's individual title by nearly 28 seconds, finishing the 6K race with a time of 20:26.6 over the Lamar duo of Jannika John (21:04.5) and Verity Ockenden (21:04.9) to give the Wildcats their first Southland team championship in any sport since the school rejoined the league in 2013-14.
ACU finished the meet with 43 points followed by the seven-time champions from SFA with 52 points. The defending champions from Lamar fell to third place with 84 points.
Hackett's Athlete of the Year crown is the first won by any Wildcat since ACU's final season in the Lone Star Conference of 2012-13. That year included notable performances from golfer Alex Carpenter, tennis players Hans Hach and
Julia Mongin, and track and field athletes Jordan Geary and Amanda Ouedraogo.
Ouedrago was named Outstanding Indoor Female Field Athlete of the Year, while Geary shared his Outstanding Indoor Male Track Athlete of the Year award with Eastern New Mexico's Isaiah Samoei.
Till is the very first Wildcat to be voted Southland Freshman of the Year in any sport.
A native of Canon City, Colo., Till flew under the radar running behind García Muñoz and the Hackett twins, but still crafted an impressive resume during the regular season. She placed third overall at her first two collegiate events held in Abilene and then finished a respectable 36th and 42nd competing against very large crowds in consecutive weeks at Texas A&M and Arkansas.
Barnier is the school's first Southland Coach of the Year since Dee Nutt won the award for men's basketball in 1968. The Southland Conference did not award Freshman or Coach of the Year trophies in a majority of its sports until after ACU departed for the Lone Star Conference in the early 1970's.
Barnier and distance coaches
Ray Walker and Drew Graham rescued the women's cross country program from near-obscurity and flipped it into a conference champion only two years later after their arrival on campus. The Wildcats finished dead last (ninth) in their final Lone Star Conference meet in 2012 but quickly scaled the Southland Conference ladder, going from seventh in 2013 to tying McNeese State for fourth in 2014.
Barnier's indoor and outdoor track and field teams have seen similar improvements the past two seasons. The men's team tied for fifth indoors at the 2015 meet and the women were fourth, while outdoors the Wildcats placed fourth (men) and sixth (women).
The ACU women were second to last in the 2014 outdoor team standings (12th). And at 2014 indoors the men were sixth and the women fourth thanks to two first-place victories claimed by sprinter
Reyare Thomas in her final semester of eligibility.
Seven individuals have won either a track and field or cross country championship since Barnier was named head coach in May of 2013, including Allie Hackett who also won the league's outdoor 5K championship last spring.
2015 Southland Conference Cross Country Individual Award WinnersFemale Athlete of the Year:
Alexandria Hackett, Abilene ChristianFemale Freshman of the Year:
Aubrey Till, Abilene ChristianFemale Newcomer of the Year: Keila Rodriguez, UIW
Women's Coach of the Year:
Keith Barnier, Abilene Christian Women's 2015 All-Southland Conference Cross Country First TeamAlexandria Hackett, Diana García Muñoz
Women's 2015 All-Southland Conference Cross Country Second TeamMichaela Hackett
Women's 2015 All-Southland Conference Cross Country Honorable MentionAubrey Till
ACU XC/TF Southland Conference Individual Champions since 2013-142015 Cross CountryAlexandria Hackett (6K)
2015 Outdoor Track and FieldJohnathan Farquharson (200m)
Alexandria Hackett (5K)
2015 Indoor Track and FieldDaniel Block (800m)
Rosen Daniel (200m)
Kimone Green (400m)
2014 Outdoor Track and FieldBaptiste Kerjean (Hammer)
2014 Indoor Track and FieldReyare Thomas (60m, 200m)
