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May 29, 2009
Maddy Outman and Nafee Harris were honored Friday as the PSAC Outdoor Field Athletes of the Year as selected by the conference head coaches. Outman was also named the Outstanding Field Athlete of the Year for the Atlantic Region by the United States Track and Field Coaches Association. Outman is a graduate student who competed at Williams College for three seasons before enrolling this year at IUP. In her only season with the Crimson Hawks, she was a two-time All-American and named the Most Outstanding Overall Athlete at both the PSAC indoor and outdoor championships. At the PSAC outdoor meet she won the heptathlon with 4,876 points, finishing first or second in six of the seven events, and also won the 100 meter hurdles with a school record time of 14.04. Outman was second in the long jump (18 feet, 3 ¼ inches) and fifth in the 100 meters (12.43) and ran a leg on a third place team in the 4x100 meter relay (48.51). Outman earned All-America honors in the 400 meter hurdles, finishing sixth in 1:01.19 while also competing in the 100 meter hurdles and the heptathlon. Earlier in the season, she set an IUP record with 4,975 points in the heptathlon at the Penn Relays. During the indoor season, Outman won the PSAC title in the 400 meters and 55 meter hurdles, was third in the 200 meters and long jump and placed eighth in the 55 meter dash. At various points in the season she held the top ranking in the conference and qualified for nationals in five different events. She competed in the pentathlon at nationals and was sixth to become the first IUP woman to earn All-America honors in the multi events at the NCAA indoor meet. Harris capped an outstanding debut season for the Crimson Hawks when he won the outdoor national championship in the long jump, breaking the school record when he jumped 26-1 ¾ on his final attempt of the meet to move up from second to first. In the process, Harris became the 12th national champion in IUP history and the first in a jumping event. He ran a leg on IUP's 4 x 100 meter relay team that finished eighth at nationals after breaking a 14-year-old school record with a time of 40.60 in the prelims. That unit was the first IUP relay team to earn All-America status since the 1977 NAIA mile relay team. At the PSAC outdoor meet, Harris won the long jump and was seventh in the triple jump while his 4 x 100 meter relay team was second. Harris also starred during the indoor season. He became the first IUP athlete to win the PSAC indoor title in the long jump and was fourth in the triple jump and added a fifth place finish in the long jump at nationals to earn the first of his two All-America honors in the event during the year. |
