Austin Atkinson enters his second season as a graduate coaching assistant on head coach Ryan Thompson's staff.
Assisted by Atkinson, the women's team raced to fifth place overall at the 2023 GSC Championships, their second consecutive season finishing in the top five. At the conference championships, AUM posted its fastest team average in school history, while all five scoring runners posted a sub-20 minute 5K time for the third time in school history.Â
At the regional championships, the Warhawks experienced similar success. AUM clocked the program's fastest 6K average in school history at an NCAA Regional, while Kenlie Nelson (third), Adley Burkes (fifth), Nicole Luther (seventh), and Abby Little (eighth) all re-wrote a spot on the 6K all-time performance list.
AUM placed fifth overall on the men's side as well, which marked the second-highest finish at the GSC Championships for a Thompson-led Warhawk squad. Under his tutelage, Basil Koech secured the league's Freshman of the Year award and recorded the third-fastest 8K time in school history.
Koech, the school's first Freshman of the Year award winner, was also named Second Team All-GSC, making him the fourth all-league honoree in program history. Koech finished 15th overall with a time of 24:54.20. Koech finished the year with the first, third, fourth, and ninth fastest 8K times in school history.
Koech took down another school record two weeks later when he raced a 31:00.60 10K to help AUM to its highest team placement at an NCAA Division II regional championship (eighth place) at the 2023 NCAA South Regionals. He earned the program's first NCAA All-Region honor and was the top freshman finisher to cover the 10K course at the regional championships. Koech finished his season with school-record marks at the 5K, 8K, and 10K race distances.
As a team, the Warhawks also ran their fastest team average at an NCAA regional in school history. All seven AUM finishers, including Connor Stoots (second), Dalton Benefield (third), Mark Foster (fourth), Hayes Colvin (sixth), Patrick Pigg (eighth), and Sam Lesie (10th) earned a spot on the 10K all-time performance list. In that race, Stoots bested his collegiate-best 10K time by more than a minute, and Pigg turned in his collegiate record in the 10K by more than 35 seconds.
Atkinson has the distinction of being AUM's first GSC First Team All-Conference performer (2019) for any sport as a Division II member. Atkinson, a stand-out runner for AUM, finished his AUM career with the fastest, second-fastest, and 10th-fastest 10K times in program history. He also raced the sixth-fastest 8K time in school history in 2019 for the Warhawks.
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