By Nate Perry, TTU Sports Information
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Two more major awards will soon be added to the Tennessee Tech track and field trophy case, as it was announced Wednesday afternoon by the Ohio Valley Conference office that Purity Sanga was named Co-Track Athlete of the Year, while Khemani Roberts was selected as Field Athlete of the Year.
The respective honors salute the dominant outdoor seasons put forth by both Sanga and Roberts, two athletes who have not only helped rewrite the Tech record book in 2019, but have recorded multiple No. 1 conference marks, and included themselves among the best in NCAA Division I.
By claiming at least a share of both the "Track" and "Field" honors for the same outdoor campaign, the terrific Tech twosome has notched the first sweep in program history, and the first in the conference since Austin Peay's Breigh Jones (Track) and Kalynn Pitts (Co-Field) in 2015.
At this point, those who follow cross country and track and field in the Ohio Valley Conference are very familiar with Purity Sanga's exploits, and the legacy she has crafted in just two seasons at Tennessee Tech.
With Wednesday's announcement, the Kapsabet, Kenya native added another bullet point to her growing resume, becoming the first female conference athlete to win Runner of the Year for the cross country season, and Track Athlete of the Year for both the indoor and outdoor portions since Eastern Kentucky's Jamie King did it in 1997-98.
She also makes it back-to-back years that a Golden Eagle has won the outdoor version of the award, building on Micayla Rennick's selection in 2018.
Just like the indoor season, Sanga's outdoor credentials include three conference-leading marks. Her first one, a time of 4-minutes, 26.32-seconds in the 1,500 meters, was set at the team's first outdoor meet of the year – the Vanderbilt Black & Gold Invitational – and has yet to be beaten.
The next one came a week later at the N.C. State Raleigh Relays on March 29, where she smashed the TTU 10,000-meter record by more than 22 seconds with a time of 34:13.03. That split still leads the league by more than three-and-a-half minutes, ranks 18th on the NCAA Division I East Outdoor Qualifying List, and 50th on the NCAA Division I Combined List.
Thanks to her superb effort in Raleigh, she has qualified to compete in the 10,000 meters at the NCAA East Preliminary Round in Jacksonville, Fla., May 23-25.
Finally, she perched herself atop the OVC leaderboard for the 5,000 meters at the Virginia Challenge on April 19, registering a time of 16:37.06 that is nearly 15 seconds faster than any other conference runner. It also comes in 85th on the East Outdoor Qualifying List.
Sanga garnered a pair of OVC Athlete of the Week honors during the outdoor year as well (March 27, April 24), and collected an eye-popping total of nine over her three competitive seasons in 2018-19 (5 cross country, 2 indoor, 2 outdoor).
Roberts' distinction makes her the first in Tech program history to be named OVC Field Athlete of the Year.
An uber-talented athlete in many facets, Roberts broke two school records during the 2019 outdoor season and matched another, and finished the regular season with one mark that leads the OVC and another that ranks second.
Roberts' first record-breaking day occurred at the Western Kentucky Hilltopper Relays on April 6, where she broke her own outdoor long jump record with a mark of 5.96 meters (19 feet, 6 3/4 inches) that eclipsed her previous standard in the Tech record book by a little over three inches (5.88m, 19-3 1/2). That jump stood as the No. 1 mark on the OVC Outdoor Performance List for nearly a month, before SIUE's Nichyria Bird leapt 6.04 meters (19-9 3/4) on May 3. It also earned a place on the NCAA East Outdoor Qualifying List, slotting in at No. 76.
The Bon Accord, Trinidad and Tobago native then matched another Tech record that she had previously set, elevating over the high jump bar at 1.77 meters (5-9 3/4) at the Virginia Challenge, the same place she had originally established the record in 2018. That leap amounts to an OVC-leading mark for Roberts, and accounts for her highest placement on the East Outdoor List, situating her in a tie for 23rd overall. It also cracks the NCAA Division I Combined List as one of nine marks tied for 39th.
Just like Sanga in the 10K, Roberts earned herself a trip to the NCAA East Preliminary Round with her high jump in Charlottesville, which actually came as part of her outrageous second-place heptathlon series there.
In a field of 17 entrants, Roberts finished in the top six in six of the seven segments of the multi-event. That number also included two first-place results, as well as a runner-up. The end result was a school-record 5,482 points, a total that still leads the OVC by more than 600 points. In fact, Roberts' effort is so impressive compared to the rest of the league that she could sit out one of the seven events and still have decent odds to be the conference champion. Nationally, Roberts' Hep stacks up as No. 8 on the NCAA Division I East Outdoor List, and 21st on the Combined List.
Roberts' stardom showed up consistently over the course of the outdoor season, as she was named OVC Field or Co-Field Athlete of the Week on three separate occasions (March 27, April 10, April 24).
Sanga and Roberts add more pieces of hardware to an impressive collection assembled under head coach Wayne Angel, as the tandem of awards make a total of seven during his tenure.
Perhaps the strongest testament to what Angel has built at Tech is the fact that all seven honors have come during the past two academic years, mapping the journey his program has traveled from afterthought to prominence.
The complete list of awards is below:
Gilbert Boit – Male Cross Country Runner of the Year, 2017
Micayla Rennick – Female Indoor Track Athlete of the Year, 2018
Micayla Rennick – Female Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year, 2018
Purity Sanga – Female Cross Country Runner of the Year, 2018
Purity Sanga – Female Indoor Track Athlete of the Year, 2019
Purity Sanga – Female Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year, 2019
Khemani Roberts – Female Outdoor Field Athlete of the Year, 2019
