TTU Sports Information
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Some things change, others don't.
While the Tennessee Tech track and field team has now moved to the outdoor portion of its schedule, its trend of raking in Athlete of the Week awards from the Ohio Valley Conference has continued, as both Khemani Roberts and Purity Sanga were recognized by the league office Wednesday afternoon as Co-Field Athlete and Co-Track Athlete of the Week, respectively.
The awards add to Tech's impressive total over the 2018-19 indoor and outdoor seasons, bringing the overall count to a whopping nine over seven regular-season meets.
Roberts' fourth career OVC Field Athlete of the Week award comes on the heels of her third-place result out of 19 athletes at the Vanderbilt Black and Gold Invitational Saturday afternoon. The Trinidad native got over the bar at 1.71 meters (5 feet, 7 ¼ inches) on the second attempt of her series to come in third, finishing behind only Carly Hinkle and Ellen Ekholm of Kentucky, the No. 7-ranked team in the country according to the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches' Association.
Clearing 1.71 put Roberts atop the high jump rankings on the OVC Outdoor Performance List for this season, and equated to the fourth-best effort of her outdoor career – a mere two and a half inches off her personal best. Out of six outdoor attempts in the high jump, she has now taken a top-five finish four times.
Roberts shared this week's award with Jessica Mattsson of Belmont.
Sanga's award is the first of her career during an outdoor campaign, and her third of the track season (indoor/outdoor). Coupled with the five such awards during her cross country season, she now has eight of them for the 2018-19 academic year.
It was her second-place finish out of 76 runners in the 1,500 meters that won the award this time around, as she completed the race in a personal-best 4-minutes, 26.32 seconds.
While the outdoor season is young, Sanga's mark is No. 13 on the NCAA Outdoor Qualifying List, and is the fifth-best amongst athletes from non-Power 5 institutions. She has the new No. 1 time on the OVC Outdoor Performance List by just under seven seconds, and posted an improvement of more than 11 and a half seconds on her previous best.
The Kapsabet, Kenya native narrowly missed her second career victory in the event, coming in just two-hundredths of a second behind the event winner, Grace Jensen of Vanderbilt (4:26.30).
Nonetheless, she added a third top-five finish in four attempts in a Tech uniform, and ran faster than athletes from Power 5s such as Michigan, Vanderbilt and Kentucky.
Sanga's honor was shared with Sabrina Richman of Austin Peay.
Photos by Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
