Cougars finish 10th and 14th in NCAA Program of the Year Awards

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – The BYU men’s and women’s track and field and cross country teams placed 10th and 14th, respectively, in the 2016 NCAA Division I Program of the Year Awards announced Tuesday from New Orleans.

Scoring is based on the team’s finish at each NCAA Championship in cross country, indoor track & field and outdoor track & field (i.e. 1st = 1 point, 2nd = 2 points, 31st = 31 points) with the lowest total score determining the award recipient.

The men’s team finished the year with 72 total points, awarding them a 10th-place finish, and the women's team finished in 14th place, with 109.5 total points.

The men's track and field team placed 19^th overall in the indoor season, which gave the Cougars 19 points. In the outdoor season, the team finished tied for 36^th place overall, giving BYU 41 points.

Men’s cross country ended the year in 12^th-place overall, and they received 12 points, with all cumulative points totaling 72 for the men's program. 

The women’s teams finished the year with 109.5 points, giving them 14^th place overall.

The women’s track and field team finished both the indoor and the outdoor seasons tied for 42^nd place, giving BYU 43 and 43.5 points, respectively. The cross country team finished in 23^rd place overall to earn 23 points for the women's program.

Men's and women's head coach Ed Eyetone says he is pleased with how his teams performed this year and is proud of their accomplishments on the big stage. 

"It is an honor to be recognized as having two of the top programs of the year," he said. "It shows we have a well-rounded program here at BYU because it takes into account the performances of our teams in all seasons. (We needed) to make it to the national meets and have teams that score, and for us to do that puts us in pretty elite strata. I am proud of all the hard work our coaches and athletes have done, and we hope to keep this success going."

Click here for the full release from the USTFCCCA about the 2016 Program of the Year Awards.

Both the men’s and women’s teams look forward to the first week in July when mid-distance runners Shaquille Walker and Shea Collinsworth will travel to Eugene, Oregon, to compete in the 2016 Olympic trials.

Walker enters the men’s trials having qualified with a 800m personal record time of 1:44.99. Collinsworth qualified for the women’s trials this past weekend at the NCAA Championships, setting a personal record in the 800m with a time of 2:02.83.