Thursday, November 29, 2018

NEW ORLEANS – The West Region women’s individual champion and the coach of the women’s team champion are collecting yet more hardware.

Alaska Anchorage junior Emmah Chelimo has been named the Division II West Region Women’s Cross Country Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track and Field & Cross Country Coaches Association. Seawolves’ head coach Michael Friess, meanwhile, was named by the organization as its Women’s West Region Coach of the Year. The awards were announced by the USTFCCCA on Nov. 29.

Chelimo becomes the third Alaska Anchorage athlete in four years to receive the regional Women’s Athlete of the Year award. The regional Coach of the Year is the fifth for Friess on the women’s side and his first since 2013. He has won eight regional cross country Coach of the Year awards on both the men’s and women’s sides.

After finishing second at the Skinny Raven Classic to open the season, Chelimo has simply been unbeatable. She raced to victories at both the UNLV Invitational and Western Washington Classic before collecting the Seawolves’ fourth straight individual victory at the GNAC Championships on Nov. 3, covering the 6,000-meter course in 21:25.1 to beat Central Washington’s Alexa Shindruk by six seconds.

Chelimo performed well despite freezing temperatures at the NCAA West Regional on Nov. 17 in Billings, Montana, winning in a time of 20:57.47. She finished 11 seconds ahead of teammate Nancy Jeptoo, who placed second, and 16 seconds ahead of third-place Eileen Stressling of Azusa Pacific.

Friess was honored for leading an Alaska Anchorage team that collected its fourth-straight GNAC championship and its first regional title since 2013. At the conference meet, the Seawolves placed four of their five scoring runners in the top-10 to finish with a score of 49 points and hold off a challenge by both Simon Fraser and Seattle Pacific. At the regional meet, the Seawolves landed those same four runners in the top-11 to finish with a score of 66 points, beating the second-place Clan by 21 points.

Both Alaska Anchorage’s men’s and women’s teams will be in the field at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships, which take place Saturday, Dec. 1, at the Bob O’Conner Golf Course at Schenley Park in Pittsburgh, Pa.