Red Raiders Win Five USTFCCCA Regional Awards
June 08, 2015 | Track and Field
Texas Tech assistant coach James Thomas swept the USTFCCCA Men's & Women's Mountain Region Assistant of the Year awards.
NEW ORLEANS, La. -- The Texas Tech No. 12 women's and No. 13 men's track & field teams combined to win five U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) regional honors, as announced by the USTFCCCA, on Monday.
Tech's five awards in the mountain region were only matched nationally by the five awards Oregon collected in the west region. The five awards marked Tech's highest single-season total in program history for an indoor or outdoor season.
Assistant coach James Thomas took both the Men's and Women's Assistant of the Year titles, his third and fourth USTFCCCA regional honors while at Tech. Coach Wes Kittley earned Men's Coach of the Year honors, an award he also won last year, and in the 2015 indoor season.
Cierra White was named the Women's Track Athlete of the Year, giving her the 2015 indoor-outdoor sweep for that award, and Kole Weldon was named the Men's Field Athlete of the Year for the second-straight year.
The Red Raiders will compete at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, June 10-13, in Eugene, Ore.
Women's Track Athlete of the Year - Cierra White
White, a senior from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, did not finish worse than second in a race at either 100 or 200 meters during the entirety of the regular season or the Big 12 Championships, where she contributed 17.5 team points to the Lady Raider team score. She's ranked No. 6 among collegians at 100 meters and No. 7 at 200 meters, both of which she'll contest at NCAAs, as she makes her fourth-straight appearance at the championships.
Men's Field Athlete of the Year - Kole Weldon
Weldon scored more points than any other male athlete at the Big 12 championships, winning the hammer and taking second in the shot put and discus. Those twenty-six points are the most by a Big 12 athlete at the conference meet in a decade. The senior from Jacksboro, Texas, qualified for the NCAA finals in the discus, winning the west region title by seven feet in the process.
Men's Coach of the Year - Wes Kittley
Kittley's team has been ranked in the national top 13 for the entirety of the season, including holding a spot in the top 10 for seven weeks. Tech scored 126 team points, third-most in program history, on its way to a second-place finish at the Big 12 Championships, powered by three individual titles. Ten Red Raiders in six events will compete at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Men's Assistant of the Year - James Thomas
Thomas, in his third year coaching the jumpers and combined event athletes at Texas Tech, is the guiding force behind one of 2015's most dynamic high jump corps. JaCorian Duffield is the collegiate leader at 2.31m/7-7, Bradley Adkins is No. 4 at 2.24m/7-4.25 and freshman Trey Culver (2.20m/7-2.5) also qualified to Eugene. Thomas also guided Jerome Wilson to the NCAAs in the long jump for a total of four male qualifiers. His athletes scored 33 points at the Big 12 Championships.
Women's Assistant of the Year - James Thomas
Thomas will also send three female jumpers to the NCAA Championships. He coached triple jumper Paetyn Revell to No. 4 in the nation with a jump of 13.43m/44-0.75, which toppled a 25-year-old school record. Thomas also had a pair of long jumpers qualify, Le'Tristan Pledger and Gionna Jackson, who leaped season-best distances at the west prelims. Led by heptathlon winner Natalie Thompson, Thomas' athletes contributed 40 points to Texas Tech's third-place Big 12 finish.
Players Mentioned
