IRVING, Texas – A pair of Baylor cross country runners were recognized on Tuesday
by the Big 12
Conference as the league's Runners of the Week. JR Hardy and Rachel
Johnson became the first BU tandem to sweep the conference's weekly
cross country awards since Bo Price and Brittany Brockman both won the
accolade on Sept. 14, 2004.
Hardy
is the first Baylor men's runner to win the honor as a freshman and the
first Bear to earn the recognition since Brad Miles on Sept. 13, 2011.
Hardy was the fastest BU
athlete on Saturday
at the UTA Season Opener with a sixth-place time of 15:22.1. The
Austin, Texas product's effort on the three-mile course helped the BU
men capture a second-place finish at the event.
It is the sixth time a Baylor men's runner has been honored by the league office.
After
also winning the Big 12 honor last week, Johnson becomes the first
female BU runner to claim the award in back-to-back weeks since Nicole
Jones accomplished the feat
in 2007. The Plano, Texas-native ran the two-mile course in
10:50.2 to claim her second straight medalist honor. Johnson, who also
won last week's Bear Twilight Invitational, competed against runners
from UTA, Texas State and the region's eighth-ranked team, SMU. The sophomore's win, plus top-11 finishes from
four other Baylor runners, gave the Bears a second-consecutive team title.
In
the 16-year history of the Big 12, BU female runners have been honored
17 times. A Baylor female runner has also won two awards in the same
year six times.
The
Bears will be off from competition until the women go to the Roy Griak
Invitational in Minneapolis, Minn., and the men head to the Stanford
Invitational in Stanford, Calif,
on Sept. 29.
