• OVC Cross Country Championships Info Page | Championship Preview | OVC Record Book
Southern Indiana senior
Brady Terry and Southeast Missouri sophomore
Nova Ojutkangas were named the 2024 OVC Male and Female Cross Country Athletes of the Year in a vote of league head coaches and announced on the eve of the 2024 OVC Cross Country Championship.
In addition, UT Martin's
Keagan Enicks and Little Rock's
Aaliyah Joshua were named the 2024 OVC Freshmen of the Year.
Prior to the 2011 season the awards for the top honors in cross country were determined by placement at the OVC Championship but were changed to a vote in 2011. This year's OVC Championship will be held on Friday, November 1 on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Martin. Following the race, the awards for Athletes of the Championships, Coach of the Year and the All-OVC teams will be awarded.
Terry has the top 8K time in the OVC this season, finishing in 24:10.5 at the Angel Mounds Invitational, an event where he placed second out of 233 competitors. That earned the senior his third OVC Runner of the Week honor of the season (which tied a program record for USI). Terry also earned the honor in September after winning the OVC Preview Meet and after placing 58th out of 320 runners at the Missouri Gans Creek Classic. Terry, who is the first USI runner to earn this award since the team joined the OVC in 2022, will be looking to become the second Southern Indiana runner in three years to win the OVC Championship meet race.
Ojutkangas ran in four meets during the regular season, winning three of them and earning OVC Runner of the Week honors after all four. The sophomore took home first place honors at the Redhawks Invitational, the OVC Preview meet and the Angel Mounds Invitational. In that final meet she set the school record for 6K with a time of 20:31.3 which is the best time in the OVC this season by nearly 37 seconds. She also had the second-best 5K time in the league. Ojutkangas is the second-straight and sixth overall SEMO runner to earn this award.
Enicks netted the top 8K time by a freshman in the OVC this season, finishing the Angel Mounds Invitational with a time of 24:53.7. That placed him first for the Skyhawks and 14th in a field of 233 runners. He also placed 20th at the Memphis Twilight Classic and was eighth at the OVC Preview Meet. Enicks is the second UT Martin runner to earn this honor, joining Luke Johnson (2022).
Joshua earned the second-best 6K time (21:08.1) and sixth-best 5K time in the OVC this season. The freshman opened her collegiate career with a second-place finish at the UCA Invite and followed that by winning the Steve Guymon Invitational while helping the Trojans to the team title. That performance earned her OVC Co-Runner of the Week honors. The concluded the regular season with a 56th place finish in a loaded field at the Alabama Crimson Classic which her top 6K time of the season. Joshua is the first Little Rock runner to earn this honor.