Achuo and McVey land AMC Athlete of the Week awards

BALLWIN, MO. - The American Midwest Conference announced the Track & Field Athletes of the Week for December 1-7. UHSP's Abigael Achuo was named the Women's Field Athlete of the Week while Evan McVey was named the Men's Track Athlete of the Week. Both Achuo and McVey ran at the Titan First Chance Meet hosted by Illinois Wesleyan University last Friday.

In the women's long jump, Abigael Achuo was successful on four of six attempts with a 5.03-Meter (16'6") jump in her third attempt coming in as her best effort. She would finish sixth overall and set a new school record in the process with that jump. Achuo was also part of the UHSP quartet including Adison Plazek, Sydney Lowis and Emerald Flores that would place third in the 4x400m relay with a time of 4:23.65. That also setting a new program record blistering the previous mark set last year of 4:28.66.

Evan McVey finished fifth overall in the men's 60-Meter dash and set a new school record in the process at 7.07 seconds, .02 seconds better than the previous UHSP record set three years ago by Jahari Hines. McVey was 8th in the preliminary heat running at 7.11 seconds, landing the final qualifying time to run in the finals. In the 200-Meter dash, the UHSP freshman finished second out of 47 runners with a time of 23.19 seconds, just .13 behind Greenville's Neko Gibson. McVey also helped the men's 4x400m Relay team sneak into the top-five in program history as he along with Amari Wiedemeier, Chris Medlock, and Jared Morales clocked in at 3:44.57 for fourth place in the IWU meet. That time was 0.26 seconds faster than the previous fifth-best time in UHSP history, 4.52 seconds off the all-time program record.

Along with McVey and Achuo, Columbia's Montgomery Keck was named the Women's Track Athlete of the Week and Columbia's Brenin Howell was named the Men's Field Athlete of the Week as the Cougars and Eutectics swept the weekly track awards.