Cox announces 2008 team honors

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Junior Keri Coulthard has been named the Most Valuable member of the 2008 Tennessee Tech women's track & field team, while freshmen Amanda Simmons, Ashley Mayhew and Leayn Carter captured the team's other awards, announced this week by head coach Tony Cox.

Simmons was named the Most Improved, Carter won the Most Dedicated award, and Mayhew received the Impact Award, given to a first-year member of the squad who has the greatest impact on the team in her rookie season.

Cox also named team captains for the season. Senior Rachel Hooks was chosen captain for the track events and senior Ashley Brady was named captain for the field events.

Coulthard has placed her name in the Tech record books as one of the best middle distance runners in school history, and recently was named first-team CoSIDA academic all-district. She holds two indoor and two outdoor school records, and scored points for Tech in both the 800m and 1,500m events at the OVC championships this year.

"Keri had a great year, and she showed a lot of team leadership," explained Cox. "She's such a hard worker, and her work ethic rubs off on the others. She just kept improving throughout the year, and she came very close to breaking her own school records. If it wasn't for a hamstring injury before the conference meet, I'm sure she would have broken records. Still, she was able to get through that and run well, despite the injury."

Simmons ran the 800m, 1,500m and mile events in her freshman season, posting the team's third-best time of the year in the 1,500m race.

"The thing that really stood out about Amanda is that she just kept continuing to improve throughout the year," Cox said. "She ran a personal best at almost every meet, and just kept cutting her times."

Carter competed in the long and triple jumps during the indoor season, and was a standout in the 400m dash and relay events all year. She had Tech's best time of the year at 400m and was on the top relay foursomes at both the 4x100 and 4x400 events.

"Leayn was there every day working as hard as she could work," Cox said. She really showed a lot of leadership by her efforts."

Mayhew produced Tech's best efforts in the shot put, discus and hammer, and also competed in the javelin.

"Ashley was our top thrower and she just went out and competed in every meet, and competed successfully," Cox said. "She worked very hard, improved all season long, and had a huge impact on our team.