SUWANEE, Ga. -- For the fourth consecutive year, Colorado College's Alex Nichols has been selected Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Coach-of-the-Year for both men's and women's cross country in exclusive voting by the league’s head coaches and sports information directors.

Nichols is the first coach in SCAC history to sweep the SCAC Coach-of-the-Year honors for both men’s and women’s cross country outright in four consecutive years.

The Tigers swept both the men's and women's conference titles at last month's championship meet, with the men winning their sixth consecutive SCAC championship and the women claiming their fourth straight conference crown and fifth in six years.

On the men's side, Colorado College had eight runners finish in the top 14 to earn all-SCAC honors - the most by one team since the CC Tigers squad also placed eight on the all conference team at the 2021 championships - led by sophomore Will Shuflit who earned Runner of the Year honors after posting the second-fastest time in championships history (24:43.39), 22 seconds ahead of the runner-up. The victory continued the program's dominance at posting the event's top medalist, with Shuflit becoming the 16th individual winner over the last 19 championships to win wearing CC black and gold.

The team conference title represented the 12th overall for the Colorado College men's cross country program (2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2019, 2020/21, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024).

At the NCAA West Regional, Shuflit led the Tigers to a fifth-place team finish as the sophomore finished fifth overall and earned an at-large slot to nationals. This past Saturday at the national championship meet, the sophomore finished 30th to become the seventh individual All-American in program history and 14th in SCAC history. .

On the women's side, Colorado College runners finished first through sixth as the Tigers posted just the fourth perfect score and the second-largest margin of victory in SCAC women's cross country championship meet history as they finished 48 points clear of second-place Trinity, 15-63. This year's title marks the eighth in CC’s program history, which is second on the league’s all-time list and just one behind the all-time SCAC record of the nine won by DePauw University fron 1998 to 2009.

Two weeks later, the second-ranked CC women placed second at the NCAA West Regional and earned an at-large berth into the NCAA Division III Championship meet, the team's fourth consecutive national meet invite, where the Tigers posted a sixth-place finish - the best in program history for Colorado College and tied for the best finish in SCAC cross country history, tying the Trinity Tigers’ sixth-place finish in 2008.

Senior Isabel Olsen posted CC's best individual finish ever at the Division III National Meet, placing 10th overall with a 6K time of 21:16.8, topping CC"s previous best finish of 16th by Sara Fry in 1993. Olsen’s finish is the best SCAC individual finish since 2009 when Trinity’s Caitlin Masse finished eighth and DePauw’s Lauren Reich finished fourth at the 2009 Championships. Fellow senior Sydney Rankin finished 24th with a time of 21:34.3, giving the Tigers two All-Americans for the fourth time in program history. It marks just the second time in SCAC history two athletes from the same program have earned All-American honors, matching Katie Sandfort and Leah Wessler of Colorado College in 2016. Olson and Ranking are the 16th and 17th Women’s Cross Country All-Americans in SCAC history.

Nichols has served as head coach of both the men's and women's cross country teams at CC since 2020, serving as an interim head coach following the retirement of legendary head coach Ted Castaneda before taking over the role permanently prior to the 2021 season. The COTY honors represent his fourth recognition on the women's side and fifth on the men's.