STANFORD, Calif. -- Julia Heymach was named Women's Track Athlete of the Year and Ricardo Santos earned Men's Assistant Coach of the Year for the West Region for the indoor track and field season by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
Heymach earned two first-team All-America honors at the NCAA Indoor Championships last weekend, anchoring Stanford's distance medley relay to second, and placing seventh in the mile with a time of 4:37.28.
Heymach ran a 4:33.07 split for 1,600 meters to bring the Cardinal team of Christina Aragon, Samantha Thomas, and Ellie Deligianni home in 10:53.37, the second-fastest time in school history and the 11th-fastest in collegiate history.
Among her other highlights, Heymach broke the Stanford indoor mile record for a 200-meter track (4:31.35) in Boston at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational on Feb. 11 and was second in the 3,000 (8:59.69) at the Pac-12 Invitational on Feb. 25 in Seattle.
Santos, Stanford's primary coach for men's distance, led his runners to 19 points at the NCAA Indoor Championships, allowing the Cardinal to place 12th as a team. Ky Robinson was second in the 5,000, Charles Hicks third in the 3,000, and Cole Sprout fifth in the 5,000 and eighth in the 3,000.
At the Pac-12 Invitational, Stanford placed 1-3 in the 3,000, with Sprout and Hicks under 7:44. In Stanford indoor istory, Robinson, Sprout, and Hicks entered the top-5 in the 5,000; and Sprout and Hicks are Nos. 2 and 3 in the 3,000.
This the second USTFCCCA regional honor for Heymach. She was named to a similar honor for cross country last fall after winning the NCAA West Region individual title and leading the Cardinal to the team crown.
This is the first West Region honor for Santos, who was the Pac-12 Men's Cross Country Coach of the Year after leading the Cardinal to the conference title in 2020-21.