Cally Macumber
Kentucky’s Cally Macumber is Female Freshman of the Week in Southeastern Conference track and field, while Eastern Kentucky’s Soufiane Bouchikhi and Kat Pagano have been honored by the Ohio Valley Conference. All three athletes competed at last weekend’s 116th Penn Relays.
Macumber, from Rochester Hills, Mich., lowered her personal best for 5,000 meters by more than 20 seconds, placing 14th in Penn’s college championship division with a time of 16:43.61. That boosts her to the top five in the SEC this season.
Soufiane Bouchikhi
Bouchikhi, a freshman from Antwerp, Belgium, is OVC Male Track Co-Athlete of the Week. Pagano, a junior from Hollis, Maine, is OVC Female Track Co-Athlete of the Week.
Bouchikhi placed second, nosed out at the finish by William and Mary’s Lewis Woodard, in the 5,000-meter run. Bouchikhi crossed the line in 14:01.71, two-hundredths of a second behind Woodard. That leads the OVC this season by nearly 40 seconds, trailed by teammate David Mutuse in 14:40.71.
Kat Pagano
Pagano set a school record of 36:06.00 for 10,000 meters, placing 14th. The time is the fastest of the season in the OVC by nearly two minutes. The former EKU record of 36:13.15 was set by Sarah Blossom in 1999.
Other SEC weekly award winners are: Tennessee senior Phoebe Wright (Female Runner); Florida senior Mariam Kevkhishvili (Female Field Athlete); LSU sophomore Barrett Nugent (Male Runner); LSU junior Walter Henning (Male Field Athlete), and Florida’s Omar Craddock (Male Freshman). All competed at the Penn Relays.
Wright (Signal Mountain, Tenn.) led Tennessee to wins in the distance medley (2:02.12 800-meter split), 4-by-1,500 (4:17.3 anchor) and 4-by-800 (meet-record 2:00.89 anchor) relays.
Kevkhishvili (Tbilisi, nation of Georgia) captured the shot put (59-7 1/2) with the third-best mark in meet history.
Nugent (Maurice, La.) won the 110-meter hurdles (13.58). His time is a personal best, fastest in the SEC this season and ranks third in the NCAA.
Henning (Kings Park, N.Y.) won his second straight Penn hammer throw (237-9) — by more than 22 feet — and was named College Men’s Individual Athlete of the Meet.
Craddock (Kileen, Texas) snared triple jump honors (53-3 1/2), defeating the nation’s top two ranked individuals (Alphonso Gordon of Georgia Tech and Zuheir Sharif of Texas A&M).
Other OVC weekly award winners are Southeast Missouri seniors Chris Gill (Male Track Co-Athlete), Juli Koenegstein (Female Track Co-Athlete) and Brandon Colbert (Male Field Athlete), and Austin Peay senior Molly Bartkiewicz (Female Field Athlete).
Gill (O’Fallon, Mo.) placed first at 400 meters (OVC-leading 47.64) at the Southern Illinois-Edwardsville Twilight Meet.
Koenegstein (Chester, Ill.) placed ninth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (OVC-leading 10:48.93) at the Drake Relays.
Colbert (Troy, Mo.) had three top 20 finishes at Drake — second in the discus (OVC-leading 175-0), ninth in the shot put (53-7 3/4) and 18th in the hammer throw (181-6).
Bartkiewicz (Westlake, Ohio) placed third at Penn, clearing 12-10 in the pole vault.
