Lock Haven, Pa. - Shippensburg’s Neely Spence capped a record-setting and outstanding freshman season by capturing the 2009 PSAC Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year and Freshman of the Year awards to highlight the 2009 PSAC Women’s Outdoor Track & Field postseason award winners. IUP’s Maddy Outman was named the Field Athlete of the Year while Slippery Rock’s John Papa was named the PSAC Women’s Track & Field Coach of the Year.
Three of the four award winners are the same winners as from the indoor postseason awards, when Spence also won both the track and freshman of the year and Papa was named coach of the year. Only Outman is not a repeat award winner from the indoor season.
In addition to her numerous accomplishments in cross country and indoor track this season, Spence completed her freshman season with more PSAC individual titles and NCAA All-American finishes in addition to helping Shippensburg finish second as a team at the PSAC championships and 17th at the NCAA Championships. Spence completes her freshman year with a clean sweep of all of the PSAC cross country and track and field awards that she was eligible for during the 2008-09 season. She was named both the cross country athlete and freshman of the year back in December and also was the PSAC track athlete and freshman of the year for the indoor track & field season in March. Spence won the 5000 meters at the PSAC Outdoor Track & Field championships earlier this month and also finished second in the 1500 meters, just .02 of a second behind Millersville’s Priscilla Jennings after Spence had narrowly edged Jennings out in the same event as the PSAC indoor championships. Spence also won the 3000 meters at PSACs. At the NCAA meet last weekend, Spence won the individual national championship in the 5000 meters by winning the event in 16:35.36.
Outman was also an All-American once again at the NCAA outdoor championships after winning an individual championship at the NCAA indoor championships. Last weekend at outdoor’s, Outman captured sixth place in the 400 meter hurdles. That followed her outstanding meet at the PSAC championships in which she won the 100 meter hurdles and the heptathlon and finished second in the long jump. For her efforts, she was named the Most Outstanding Athlete of the Meet as well as the Field Athlete of the Meet.
Papa is awarded the Coach of the Year award after also being named the Coach of the Year during the indoor season after guiding Slippery Rock its third consecutive women’s indoor track & field championship. During the outdoor season, he guided The Rock to its second consecutive outdoor title as Rock just edged out Shippensburg for the team title, winning by only 16.5 points this year after taking the title by more than 100 points last year. Papa’s team captured five individual event titles at the PSAC meet this year as Laura Mucho won the 3000 meter steeplechase, Lacey Cochran took the 200 meters title, Amanda Seigworth won the 400 meter hurdles and the 4x400 and 4x100 meter relays teams each won titles as well.
2009 PSAC Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Awards
Track Athlete of the Year
Neely Spence, Shippensburg
Field Athlete of the Year
Maddy Outman, IUP
Freshman of the Year
Neely Spence, Shippensburg
Coach of the Year
John Papa, Slippery Rock