Lady T-Birds indoor track & field hauls in national awards

As the New Mexico Junior College women's indoor track and field team celebrates its third national championship in four years, and the men's program finishing fourth in its return, the Thunderbirds and Lady Thunderbirds have picked up several individual awards. On the national level, NMJC was awarded the women's athlete of the year, the women's coach of the year and the women's assistant coach of the year. NMJC also picked up the men's region field athlete, women's track athlete, and several more coaching awards.

Winning one of the awards is impressive, but NMJC won three of the four awards. On the men's side, the awards were split between Colby College (men's track), Iowa Central College 

(coach of the year), and Barton College (field athlete and assistant coach of the year).

Flomena Asekol, a freshman at NMJC was named the women's National Track Athlete of the Year and the West Region Women's Track Athlete of the Year. At the women's national championships, Asekol dominated, winning three individual events and anchoring a relay in its first place finish. Individually, Asekol accounted for 32.5 of the Lady T-Birds' 160 points.

Asekol won the 800-meters with a time of 2 minutes and 12.87 seconds. In the 1,000-meters, Asekol had a time of 2:56.43 to win the event. She then won the mile, after finishing in 4:52.69. Running anchor for NMJC in the distance medley relay, Asekol helped the Lady T-Birds win by nearly 20 seconds as the team turned in a time of 11:56.50

The freshman was also named an NJCAA All-American as well as a USTFCCCA All-American in the 800-meter run, the 1,000-meter run, the mile run, and the distance medley relay.

Andrei Romanov was named West Region Men's Field Athlete of the Year. The freshmen won the individual national championship in the weight throw with a distance of 70-feeet, 4.25-inches. He broke the NJCAA weight throw record this year and was named an All-American by both, the NJCAA and the USTFCCCA.

On the coaching side, NMJC head coach Keith Blackwill was named National Coach of the Year and West Region Women's Coach of the Year. The national award is his third in four years for indoor track and field. He has also won the last three outdoor coach of the year awards.

New Mexico Junior College also had multiple assistants honored. Lady T-Birds assistant coach Jeff Becker was named National Assistant Coach of the Year while Tabarie Henry was named West Region Women's Assistant Coach of the Year. Becker coaches the Lady T-Birds distance runners, which racked up 65 of NMJC's 160 points. As for Henry, he coaches the hurdlers and sprinters, and had 12 athletes qualified in 22 events at the national championships.