Feb. 3, 2016
- Men's Big Ten Release
- Women's Big Ten Release
ROSEMONT, Ill. - Finishing the weekend with top-10 NCAA marks in their respective events, seniors Tori Gerlach and Brannon Kidder have been named the Big Ten Track Athletes of the Week, as announced by the conference office Wednesday afternoon.
This is the fifth career award for Kidder and second of the 2016 indoor season. At the Penn State National (January 30-31), Kidder ran twice - once as the anchor on the Nittany Lions' Distance Medley Relay and then again on Saturday in the 800 - and shined each time.
During the DMR, Kidder used a strong kick to come from behind to beat Stanford's Sean McGorty. Kidder split 3:55, which helped Penn State not only win the race, but move up to fourth on the all-time collegiate list.
In the 800-meters, Kidder went up against one of the strongest fields of the weekend and won by .36 seconds. Kidder's time of 1:47.01 is third on the National Descender Order List for NCAA Division I and first in the Big Ten.
Kidder's time broke the meet record of 1:47.36 set by former Nittany Lion Casimir Loxsom in 2011, just missing the facility and school record of 1:46.98 by four one-hundredths of a second (0.04).
Tori Gerlach completed another weekend of competition with yet another school record, breaking her second school record on the season, this time in the mile. Gerlach, who broke the school record in the 1,000-meters at the Nittany Lion Challenge, finished the Penn State National meet recording a time of 4:37.83 in the mile breaking the seven-year-old school record held by 2012 Olympian Bridget Franek. Gerlach's time currently ranks No. 1 in the Big Ten and No. 7 in the NCAA.
This is the first indoor track and field weekly award of Gerlach's career
The Nittany Lions host the Sykes & Sabock Challenge Cup Friday and Saturday (February 5-6) at the Ashenfelter III Indoor Track.
For more on Nittany Lion track & field, log onto www.GoPSUsports.com or follow the team on Twitter @PennStateTFXC
Information from USTFCCCA was used in this release.