Five Utes Earn USTFCCCA Track & Field All-Academic Individual Honors

Utah Track and Field Spring Classic_800 Meters

Photo by: Steve C. Wilson

Five Utes Earn USTFCCCA Track & Field All-Academic Individual Honors

7/22/2019 2:32 PM | Track & Field

Full track & field squad also earned USTFCCCA All-Academic team honors

NEW ORLEANS, La. – Five different Utah track & field athletes were named U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Academic individuals, the USTFCCCA announced on Monday. In addition to the individual honors, the Utah track & field squad earned USTFCCCA All-Academic team honors.

The Utes received USTFCCCA All-Academic Team honors in recognition of their 3.57 cumulative team average, which ranked as the 21st best GPA among women teams. It ranked third highest among Pac-12 schools, coming in just behind Arizona State (3.60) and Stanford (3.59). This marks the fifth straight and ninth overall USTFCCCA All-Academic Team honor for Utah under head coach Kyle Kepler.

Earning individual honors this season was Skyler Blair, Brooke Manson, Sarah Newton, Poppy Tank, Bella Williams and Cara Woolnough. This marks the first USTFCCCA All-Academic Track & Field honor for Blair, Manson, Williams and Woolnough, while both Newton and Tank earn the honor for a second straight season.

Blair, who is in her first season with the Utes as a true freshman, earned a NCAA West Preliminary entry into the 400-meter hurdles event after registering a new personal best and fifth-fastest time in school history. She ran a 59.72 at the Desert Heat Classic back on April 27.

Manson, also a true freshman, along with Newton, who is a junior for the Utes, both qualified for the NCAA West Prelims in the 800-meter event. Newton posted a new personal best time of 2:05.88 at the Portland Twilight back on May 3, which ranked 23rd among West Prelim entries. Manson ranked 32nd in the West Region with a time of 2:06.77, which she posted on April 17 at the Bryan Clay Invitational.

Tank, a junior for the Utes, competed in her first-ever 10,000-meter run at the Pac-12 Outdoor Championships, taking seventh overall and finishing in a time of 34:21.21 – which then ranked fifth-fastest in school history. Despite the 10K being her first-ever, she still managed to qualify for the West Preliminary where she was ranked 38th in the event. She would go onto finish 13th in the 10K at the West Prelims. Despite just missing out on the finals she would register a new PR with a time of 34:08.80, which still ranks fifth-fastest on the school's all-time performance list.

Williams, a sophomore who ran a personal best time of 16:27.41 in the 5000-meter run back on March 28 at the Mike Fanelli Track Classic, headed into the West Prelims ranked 47th in the 5K event. Woolnough, a redshirt freshman, qualified in the 1500-meter run, posting a season and personal best time of 4:24.89 in a "last chance" meet at the Portland Twilight on May 3.

Including the Scholar Athletes of the Year, a total of 902 women earned USTFCCCA All-Academic honors during the 2018-19 track & field seasons. To qualify for USTFCCCA All-Academic honors, the student-athlete must have compiled a cumulative GPA of 3.25 and have met at least one of the following athletic standards:
- For the indoor season, a student-athlete much have finished the regular season ranked in the national top 96 in an individual event or ranked in the national top 48 in a relay event on the official NCAA POP list provided by TFRRS.org.
- For the outdoor season, a student-athlete must have participated in any round of the NCAA Division I Championships.

Skyler Blair	Utah	Biomedical Engineering
Brooke Manson	Utah	Environmental & Sustainability Studies
Sarah Newton	Utah	Kinesiology
Poppy Tank	Utah	Kinesiology & Biology
Bella Williams	Utah	French & History
Cara Woolnough	Utah	Biomedical Engineering