LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. – After exclusive voting by the head coaches of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC), the league office today announced its 2022 Women’s Outdoor Track & Field postseason awards.
Kendall Accetta of Colorado College earned Track Athlete-of-the-Year honors, while Julissa Rodriguez of Texas Lutheran University was selected as the Women's Field Athlete-of-the-Year.
In that same balloting, Elliot Singer of Colorado College was voted Newcomer-of-the-Year and the Trinity coaching staff earned Women's Staff-of-the-Year accolades.
The all-conference team is determined by performance at the conference championship meet where the top three finishers in each event are recognized as All-SCAC. Complete All-SCAC Women's Track & Field Team
Accetta, a junior from Portland, Ore., won both the 1500 meters and 3000 meter steeplechase at the 2022 SCAC Championships, posting the second-fastest time (10:57.54) in conference meet history in the later event. Accetta broke the CC school record four times in the steeplechase throughout the course of the season, including in the final race of the year when she ran 10:40.21 to finish seventh at the NCAA DIII National Championship and earn All-American honors. She is the fifth Colorado College female to earn outdoor track and field All-America honors, and the first Tiger, male or female, to earn All-America status in the steeplechase.
Accetta's selection marks the second time a Colorado College student-athlete has earned SCAC Track Athlete-of-the-Year honors and the first since Katie Sandfort in 2017, who is also CC's last female track and field All-American.
Rodriguez, a first-year from Deer Park, Texas, tied for the high point female scorer (26 points) at the 2022 SCAC Championships, earning Co-Athlete-of-the-Meet honors as a result. Competing in all four throwing events, Rodriguez finished first in the shot put (39' 3 3/4"), second in the discus (121' 3"), third in the hammer (134' 8") an fifth in the javelin (99' 6"), with the first three efforts all top 15 performances in the West Region this season.
Rodriguez's selection marks the fourth time a TLU woman has earned Field Athlete-of-the-Year honors and the first time since Cortnee Priour following the 2019 season.
CC's Singer was named Newcomer-of-the-Year following wins in both the 5k and 10k races at the 2022 SCAC Championships. Her 10k top time of 36:57.53 ranks 39th on the final national list, and her 5k time of 17:26.46 ranks 46th. She is the 11th woman to double up with wins in both events in SCAC championships history but the first since Taylor Stephens of Rhodes College in 2010-11 to take those two events after having won the individual cross country title earlier in the fall.
The league's Runner- and Newcomer-of-the-Year in women's cross country, Singer is just the second CC female track and field student-athlete to earn Newcomer-of-the-Year honors, joining Allysa Warling who earned the accolade following the 2016 season.
Finally, the SCAC Women’s Track & Field Staff of the Year honor went to the Trinity staff after another strong season which culminated in the Tigers winning the SCAC women’s track & field championship for the seventh consecutive year and 15th time overall, the most of any program in league history. Led by ninth-year Head Coach Marcus Whitehead, the award marks the seventh-straight year he and his assistant coaches were honored as the SCAC Women’s Staff of the Year.
