ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — University of New Mexico track & field/cross country student-athletes Sophie Connor and Alice Wright were both named Friday to the 2016 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America Track & Field/Cross Country First Team.
The duo becomes the fifth and sixth CoSIDA Academic All-America selection for New Mexico Athletics in the 2015-16 academic year and continues a 15-year streak of multiple Academic All-America selections for UNM as a whole.
They also mark the 10th and 11th Academic All-America selections for the Lobo track & field/cross country program in its history, and the fifth and sixth first-team selections in the last three seasons, which is the second most in Division I in that span (Nebraska, seven).
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| Alice Wright | |
Wright, a redshirt junior-to-be from Worcester, England, is majoring in liberal arts and carries a 4.00 GPA. This is the first Academic All-America selection for Wright, who is a two-time academic all-district honoree and a four-time All-American athletically.
She claimed her most recent All-American honor on the track two weeks ago when she captured runner-up honors in the 10,000-meter run at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Additionally, Wright was the No. 2 scorer for the 2015 NCAA champion women’s cross country team this past November.
In the classroom, she was named Academic All-Mountain West and MW Scholar-Athlete from 2014-15 and was earned a second straight USTFCCCA All-Academic honor in February as part of the NCAA Division I Women’s Scholar Team of the Year.
Connor, a graduate student from Hertfordshire, England, posted a 4.04 GPA earning her Master of Business Administration. A 2016 Indoor All-American in the mile, Connor finished 11th in the 1500 at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
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| Alice Wright | |
Connor experienced a breakout year on the track in 2016, setting the UNM records in the 800 indoors and the 1500 outdoors. She won the mile at the 2016 MW Indoor Championships and claimed the 800-meter title at the MW Outdoor Championships two weeks ago.
She is also the only athlete in program history to advance to the finals of the 1500 at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
In the classroom, she earned Academic All-MW and MW Scholar-Athlete honors in 2015.
New Mexico is just one of two institutions to receive multiple women’s First Team Academic All-America selections this year, joining Georgia (Leontia Kallenou and Keturah Orji).
For UNM as a whole, Connor and Wright join ski’s Emilie Cedervärn (first team), baseball’s Chris DeVito and Alex Estrella (third team) and men’s soccer’s Josh Dye (first team) as Academic All-America selections.
Connor and Wright are the 96th and 97th Academic All-America selections in UNM history (dating back to 1968), with 67 of those coming in the last 15 years.