List of Academic All-America Recipients
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — University of New Mexico track & field student-athletes Alice Wright, Sophie Connor and Sam Trigg were named Friday to the 2017 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America Track & Field/Cross Country First Team.
Wright and Connor both earned their second straight Academic All-America recognition, while Trigg collected his first such honor.
“It’s a great honor for these three student-athletes,” New Mexico head coach Joe Franklin said. “We continue to recruit high-achieving student-athletes to the University of New Mexico and they continue to do great things on the track and in the classroom for our program and university.”
The trio are the sixth, seventh and eighth CoSIDA Academic All-America selections for New Mexico Athletics in the 2016-17 academic year and continues a 16-year streak of multiple Academic All-America selections for UNM as a whole.
They also mark the 12th, 13th and 14th Academic All-America selections for the Lobo track & field/cross country program in its history, and the seventh, eighth and ninth first-team selections in the last four seasons
The Lobos’ nine First-Team Academic All-America selections since 2014 are the most in Division I in that span.
Wright, a redshirt junior from Worcester, England, is pursuing a graduate degree in physical education and finished her undergraduate studies with a 4.03 GPA. A three-time Academic All-District honoree, Wright has claimed her second straight Academic All-American nod.
Along with Connor, she is one of eight Lobos in university history to earn multiple first-team selections, and the first since men’s soccer’s Simon Ejdemyr in 2007-08.
Wright is also a six-time All-American athletically, with three honors in outdoor track and three in cross country. She claimed her second consecutive runner-up finish in the 10,000-meter run at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in early June.
This past November, Wright was the No. 1 scorer for Lobo women’s cross country team, placing 19th at the NCAA Championships.
Academically, she was named Academic All-Mountain West and MW Scholar-Athlete from 2014-16 and earned a third 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 4.00 GPA earning her Master of Business Administration. This is Connor’s second straight Academic All-American honor, elevating her as one of eight repeat first-teamers in university history.
Only one other athlete in the history of the UNM track & field/cross country program, Gabe Aragon, has earned multiple Academic All-America honors (second-team in 2013, first-team in 2014).
A two-time NCAA Championships qualifier in the mile run, Connor was an All-American in the mile in 2016. She owns the UNM records in the 800 indoors and the 1500 outdoors and won the mile at the 2016 MW Indoor Championships and the 1500 at the 2016 MW Outdoor Championships.
In the classroom, she earned Academic All-MW and MW Scholar-Athlete honors in 2015 and 2016.
Trigg, a graduate student from Plymouth, England, holds a 4.07 GPA as he pursues his Master’s Degree in physical education. A horizontal jumper, Trigg is the first field athlete in program history to be named Academic All-America.
In the field, he nabbed his first All-American honor earlier this month at the NCAA Outdoor Championships as he placed eighth in the triple jump.
He also scored in the triple jump and long jump at the 2017 MW Outdoor Championships and won the triple jump at the 2016 MW Outdoor Championships. He ranks third in New Mexico history in the outdoor triple jump.
Additionally, he was named Academic All-Mountain West and MW Scholar-Athlete in 2016.
New Mexico is the only institution to receive more than two First-Team Academic All-America selections in track & field this year.
For UNM as a whole, Wright, Connor and Trigg join men’s soccer’s Niko Hansen (first team), football’s Garrett Adcock (first team), women’s basketball’s Cherise Beynon (first team) and baseball’s Jared Mang (second team) and Carl Stajduhar (third team) as Academic All-America selections for the 2016-17 academic year.
Wright, Connor and Trigg are the 103rd, 104th and 105th Academic All-America selections in UNM history (dating back to 1968), with 75 of those coming in the last 16 years.
Fans can follow the Lobos on Twitter (@lobo_track) and Instagram (@lobo_xc_tf) for information and updates on the team!