By Nate Perry, Sports Information
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – In an event that has become somewhat customary, Purity Sanga claimed her fifth straight installment of the Ohio Valley Conference's Female Runner of the Week, giving her a year-long sweep of the award during Tech cross country's 2018 regular season.
As the only female runner in the OVC to ever win Runner of the Week four times in a row, Sanga's fifth adds an additional layer of excellence to her sensational sophomore season, arguably the best ever assembled by a female runner in league history.
"I'm so proud of Purity," said her coach Wayne Angel. "She has come a long way since her freshman year, and that's a credit to her hard work and dedication over the summer. All the preparation she has done has been paying off in a great way."
This award comes on the heels of Sanga's individual victory at the UAB Blazer Classic, the first of her career in a large-meet setting. Her six-kilometer time of 20-minutes, 28.56-seconds was the second-fastest of the her career, and convincingly paced the rest of the field at the Blazer by 26 seconds.
The victory continued the Kapsabet, Kenya natives's streak of top-three individual finishes in 2018, and was the cornerstone of TTU's ninth-place team result out of 19 programs at UAB.
As she has done throughout the season, Sanga once again went head-to-head with premier competition from the South's powerhouse programs, beating Esther Gitahi of Alabama, and Megan Murray and Katie Thronson of Tennessee, the second, third and fourth-place finishers, respectively.
This is the sixth Runner of the Week honor of Sanga's career, as she recorded one last season for her 17:46.8 5K at the 2017 Mountain Dew Invitational on Sept. 23.