BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – The Eastern Kentucky University cross country team’s dominant season in the Ohio Valley Conference was validated on Friday as five Colonels swept the league’s postseason honors.
Junior Soufiane Bouchikhi and sophomore Ben Toroitich were named Co-Male Athletes of the Year, while sophomore Ann Eason was selected Female Athlete of the Year by a vote of league head coaches on Friday, the eve of the OVC Cross Country Championships. In addition, Amos Kosgey and Julia van Velthoven were voted Male and Female Freshmen of the Year.
Bouchikhi and Kosgei comprise a dangerous 1-2 punch for the Colonels, who are ranked No. 13 in the most recent U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Association (USTFCCCA) national poll. The OVC Athlete of the Year honor is the third-straight for Bouchikhi, who enters Saturday’s meet as the two-time defending OVC Champion. The native of Antwerp, Belgium won the Brooks Memphis Twilight Classic (20:43.95) to open the season, was seventh at the Notre Dame Invitational (23:53) and last time out placed 13th at the loaded Wisconsin Adidas Invitational (23:39). Bouchikhi is the ninth-straight EKU runner to be named OVC Athlete of the Year and the fourth harrier in conference history to earn the honor three or more times (joining former Colonel standouts Grant Colehour, John Nganga and Jacob Korir).
Bouchikhi was pushed all fall by Toroitich, who is competing in his first season of cross country after arriving at EKU last winter and earning second team All-American honors in the outdoor 3,000-meter steeplechase this spring. The native of Marakwet, Kenya holds the fastest 8K time in the OVC this year, running 23:36.0 at the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational two weeks ago, where he finished 10th out of a field of 316 runners. Toroitich was also third this season at the Brooks Memphis Twilight Classic, third at the Vanderbilt Commodore Classic and 11th at the Notre Dame Invitational.
After the EKU women’s team lost one of its top runners, freshman Meri Rantanen, early in the season, Eason stepped up and led the Colonels the rest of the way, including posting the top 5K (17:37.26) and 6K (21:26.10) times in the conference in 2012. Along the way, she earned a pair of adidas OVC Runner of the Week honors, including the last week of the season after establishing that top 6K time at the NCAA Pre-Nationals meet. Eason, who hails from Lexington, Ky., was a second-team All-OVC performer in cross country last fall, before sweeping the league’s indoor and outdoor 5,000 meters titles this spring. She is the 24th runner from EKU (and fourth in a row) to be named OVC Female Cross Country Athlete of the Year.
Kosgey, whose older sister Lydia was a 2011 All-American and OVC Female Athlete of the Year, holds the eighth-best 8K time (24:44.60) in the OVC this season, setting that mark two weeks ago at the NCAA Pre-Nationals meet in Louisville. In that performance, he led the Colonels’ ‘B’ team to a second place finish out of 24 teams in the black race. Earlier this season, he was fifth out of 203 competitors at the Brooks Memphis Twilight Classic and 10th at the Vanderbilt Commodore Classic. Kosgey, who is from Eldoret, Kenya, is the fourth EKU runner to be named OVC Male Freshman of the Year since the award was first handed out in 2005, joining Elkana Kurgat (2006), Bouchikhi (2010) and Thijs Nijhuis (2011).
On the women’s side, van Velthoven notched the second-best 5K time in the OVC this year, running 17:40.13 at the Greater Louisville Classic on Sept. 29. She started the season with a fourth place finish at the Memphis Brooks Twilight Classic and was 11th at the Vanderbilt Commodore Classic. The Tilburg, Netherlands native is the third EKU runner to be named OVC Female Freshman of the Year since the award was first handed out in 2005, joining Picoty Leitich (2009) and Hannah Miller (2010).
Prior to the 2011 season, the awards for top honors in cross country were determined by placement at the OVC Championship; however, the process was changed to a vote before last year’s championship. This year’s OVC Championship will be held on Saturday, Oct. 27 at Oxford Lake in Oxford, Ala. Following the race the awards for Athletes of the Championships, Coach of the Year and the All-OVC teams will be awarded.
