Locals shine at NCAA Outdoor Track Championships

USC women’s track and field’s Chanel Brissett (Philadelphia/ Cheltenham) earned two First Team All-America honors as the sophomore finished second in the 100-meter hurdles and ran on the Trojans’ winning 4x100 relay at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships last Saturday in Austin, Texas.

Brissett ran a personal record of 12.52 (+0.6) to take silver in the 100 hurdles, a time that put her second on USC’s all-time list. She and event winner Janeek Brown of Arkansas both broke the previous facility record (12.62) of the University of Texas’ Mike A. Myers Stadium.

Brissett was also part of a USC 4x100 that set new school and facility records in placing first in a time of 42.21. The time was the fastest ever in an NCAA 4x100 final — besting LSU’s mark of 42.25 in 2018 — and was the fastest in the world this season.

As a team, USC took second with 57 points while national champ Arkansas finishing with 64 points.

• Rhode Island women’s track and field’s Lotte Black (Ambler/ Wissahickon) finished fourth in the 1500 meters at the NCAA Outdoor Championships last Saturday, her time of 4:13.02 breaking both the school record and personal best she set last Thursday in qualifying for the final. Black, who earned First Team All-American honors with the finish, is the program’s first track individual to reach the NCAA final rounds.

• Penn women’s track and field’s Uchechi Nwogwugwu

(Lansdale/North Penn) earned honorable mention All-American honors in both the 400 meters and the 4x400 relay at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

Last Thursday, Nwogwugwu — the first women’s sprinter in Penn history to advance to the NCAA Championships — took 17th in the 400 with a time of 53.49 and ran a 52.87 split in the anchor leg of the Quakers’ 4x4 to came in 18th in 3:36.84.

• Saint Joseph’s baseball’s Andrew Cossetti (Eagleville/La Salle) was named to the All-Big 5 Team at the designated hitter position.

Cossetti, a freshman led the Hawks in home runs (8), doubles (13), RBIs (42) and slugging percentage (.494).

• West Chester women’s golf’s Juliarose Genuardi (Harleysville/North Penn) was named to the PSAC All-Conference First Team Monday. It the second all-conference honor for Genuardi, who made the second team as a junior in 2017-2018.

Last October at the 2018 PSAC Women’s Golf Championships, Genuardi claimed the individual championship — the first WCU golfer to win the title — as the Golden Rams won their first conference championship.

• Kutztown softball’s Sara Keeny (Warminster/ William Tennent) was selected to the Google Cloud Academic All-American Softball Division II Second Team by the College Sports Information Directors Association of America (CoSIDA). Keeny joined teammate Tamara Jennings as the program’s first CoSIDA Academic All-Americans.

Keeny, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice and a 3.44 GPA, set Kutztown single-season-records this year in hits (100, tied for first in Division II) and batting average (.518).

• West Chester baseball’s Jared Melone (North Wales/North Penn) was named to the 2019 Google Cloud Academic All-America Division II Baseball First Team, becoming the first in program history to earn multiple Google Cloud/CoSIDA Academic All-America First Team honors.

Melone, an accounting/finance major, finished fourth in Division II in batting average (.438) and led the PSAC in doubles (20), slugging percentage (.784) and on-base percentage (.520) as he became WCU’s first player to earn First Team All-America in three major voting associations — American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA)/Rawlings, National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) and the College Commissioners Association (D2CCA).

• Arcadia softball’s Jackie Bilotti (North Wales/North Penn) was named to the Google Cloud Academic All-America Division III Softball Second Team.

Bilotti, who earned her degree in early childhood education/special education with a 3.93 GPA, is the fourth student-athlete in school history to earn Academic All-American honors and the second-ever from the softball program.

For Arcadia this season, Bilotti led the Knights in batting average (.448), hits (64), runs (41), doubles (8) and triples (6) as she earned Second Team AllAmerican and First Team All-Region honors along with being named MAC Commonwealth Player of the Year.