USTFCCCA Release

NEW ORLEANS, La. – The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association announced All-America honors for the 2020 NCAA Division III Indoor Championships Tuesday morning.

While normal policies dictate the honor goes to the top-eight finishers in both individual and relay events, the executive committee adopted the following criteria as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic cancelling the NCAA Championships. Based on selected participants initially announced by the NCAA, the following are now recognized as All-Americans:

• Individual events: All student-athletes declared and initially accepted.
• Relay events: Members of ALL relays who produced the performance that was declared and accepted.

As a result, the Otterbein track and field program picked up All-American honors in four separate events. Freshman Destinee Rencher represented on the women's side in the long jump, where she quailed as part of the top-20 competitors. Her seed jump of 18-5 was delivered when she was the Ohio Athletic Conference Championships.

Senior Cwinn Febus repeated with All-America status in the 60-meter hurdles after taking sixth last season. This time around, he was entering ranked 10th after a career-best 8.13 at the Tufts Final Qualifier.

Sophomore Tyler Boales, scheduled to make his first national appearance, received honors in the long jump after his stellar qualifying mark of 23-8.75 to win the OAC's. That effort had him seeded 10th in the field. Boales was also recently voted the 2019-20 Otterbein Male Breakthrough Athlete of the Year.

The distance medley relay quartet of Hunter Moore, Nathan Forney, Jacob Thompson and Chase Hampton also received the All-America accolade. Seeded eighth, they qualified after running 10:02 at Tufts for the second-best result in program history. Moore and Hampton were foregoing individual events to focus on the relay.

In early March, the NCAA decided to restore eligibility and not count this recent spring season toward the semester limit for any spring student-athlete. Febus and Thompson, both seniors, have already voiced the motivation and interest to return for one last go-around.

Stay tuned to otterbeincardinals.com and all of our social media outlets for ongoing updates throughout this COVID-19 pandemic.