By Nate Perry, TTU Sports Information
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – For the third week in a row, the Tennessee Tech track and field team has been represented in the Ohio Valley Conference's Athlete of the Week awards, as Purity Sanga and Raven Smith each received their second league honor of the indoor season on Wednesday afternoon.
Sanga earned Co-Female Track Athlete recognition after breaking her own program record in the 5,000 meters on Friday night at the Indiana Relays. She became the first Golden Eagle to complete the race in less than 17 minutes with a time of 16-minutes, 46.31-seconds.
The sophomore's effort is faster than any other mark in the OVC by more than 36 seconds, and occupies the No. 47 spot on the 2018-19 NCAA Division I Indoor Qualifying List.
On Saturday, Sanga lined up for the mile run, and became the first league athlete to post a sub-five-minute time this year, clocking a 4:54.55 that gave her sixth place out of 31 competitors. Carli Knott of Southeast Missouri owns the second-fastest in the conference, a 5:05.22.
On her way to her sixth-place finish in the mile, Sanga beat out runners from Notre Dame, Ole Miss and Wisconsin.
With her results from Friday and Saturday, the Kapsabet, Kenya native now owns the top marks in the OVC for the mile, the 3,000m and the 5,000m.
The award is Sanga's second this season, and second of her career for track and field. The sophomore shares this week's accolade with Southeast Missouri's Kaitlyn Shea.
Sanga also won five OVC Female Runner of the Week distinctions during the cross country season – one after each regular-season meet. Having been honored after both track and field meets she has competed in this year, she has extended her streak of weekly league awards to seven in a row.
Raven Smith earned Co-Female Field Athlete of the Week for setting Tech's new indoor triple jump standard with a 12.00-meter attempt (39 feet, 4.5 inches) on Saturday. Like Sanga, Smith already owned the top indoor mark in school history, but has now tacked on another two inches to her previous best of 11.95 meters (39-2.5).
Smith also added separation to her title as the top triple jumper in the OVC, making a significant improvement on the conference's old No. 1 mark, 11.80 meters. She now leads the league by more than two-tenths of a meter (8.25 inches).
The Atlanta native bested jumpers from Ole Miss and Wisconsin in the competition to take her fourth career top-five finish.
It marks the second career OVC award for Smith, who has received both of them this season.
Photo by Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
