This has been a historic week for Golden Hurricane athletes, with four different students—across three different sports—earning honors for their performances two weeks ago.
The first honors that were awarded this week were American Athletic Conference Cross Country Athletes of the Week for seniors Marc Scott and Rachel Baptista.
Both Scott and Baptista led the Tulsa teams in the Wisconsin Invitational last week with Scott winning the 8K on the men’s side and Baptista taking 21st in the 6K on the women’s side.
The Wisconsin Invitational is one of the premier races for cross country with 36 different schools from across the country participating and over 240 runners in each of the races.
The men took home eighth-place, beating out fourteen higher ranked schools in the process while the women took 28th place with 25 team who were competing either ranked or receiving votes nationally.
In addition to the honor from the American Athletic Conference, Marc Scott was named the Division I Men’s Cross Country Athlete of the Week by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
This was again due to his performance in the Wisconsin adidas Invitational which was his second straight first place finish this season.
This helped the men’s cross country team earn their first top-30 ranking this season by the USTFCCCA, and moved to No. 2 in the Midwest Regional rankings, while the women moved up from No. 8 in the Midwest to No. 6.
The men and women’s teams will look to defend their titles this upcoming Saturday at the Conference Championships in Greenville, N.C.
The next TU athlete to be honored this week was senior volleyball player, Ashley Hooper, who was named the American Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Week for recording a .382 hitting percentage, 29 kills and tabbing eight blocks two weekends ago in Tulsa’s wins over USF and UCF.
This is the first conference award for Hooper in her career at Tulsa and the first Conference Player of the Week for the volleyball team this season.
They will finish up their current homestand against Southern Methodist on Wednesday before traveling to take on East Carolina, Cincinnati and Memphis in the next two weeks.
Finally, freshman soccer player Cole Poppen took home the American Athletic Conference Men’s Soccer Defensive Player of the Week, the first for Poppen, and the first for the men’s soccer team this season.
Poppen started and played the entire 90 minutes against Temple at home two weeks ago and helped the Golden Hurricane record a 2–0 shutout, while also recording three shots himself on offense, one of which was on goal.
The men’s team plays their final regular season game on Saturday afternoon in Memphis and following that will defend their title in the American Conference Championships which begins on Nov 7. The location for the quarterfinals is unknown at this time because it is hosted by the team with the higher seed.
