PSAC Top 10 Release •
Spence's All-Time SU Bio
LOCK HAVEN, Pa. – Senior
Neely Spence was named Friday morning to the 2011-12 PSAC Fall Top 10 squad. Spence, a human communications studies major with a 3.85 cumulative GPA, was one of two Shippensburg honorees along with senior cross country runner Stephen Schelander.
Spence becomes the fifth athlete to have won five career PSAC Top 10 awards, which is tied for the most in the history of the league. The other five-time honorees are Amber Hackenberg (Bloomsburg), Laura Kline (Kutztown), Jen Hansen (Slippery Rock) and Chris Cummings (Mansfield).
Spence won her second consecutive Division II women's cross country national championship on a snowy, windy and frigid morning from the Plantes Ferry Athletic Complex in Spokane, Washington with a 13-second victory over the field and a 6K time of 20:53. Her efforts resulted in being named the USTFCCCA Division II Cross Country Female Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive season.
In 2011, Spence won five of her six races to cap off her career with victories in 22 of her 27 career races. She concluded her collegiate cross country career as a two-time Division II national champion, three-time Division II All-American, four-time NCAA Atlantic Region champion and a four-time PSAC champion.
Her only loss of 2011 came at the Brooks Paul Short Run in which she finished second to Villanova senior Bogdana Mimic, a three-time Division I All-American from Serbia who went on to finish sixth at this year's Division I championships with a time of 19:45.7.
Spence is also first athlete in the history of the PSAC to become a four-time PSAC Athlete of the Year award winner in any sport and completed her Shippensburg running career by being named the PSAC Athlete of the Year in all 10 of her collegiate seasons of competition (cross country [4], indoor track [3], outdoor track [3]).
With its two honorees, Shippensburg maintains the lead among league institutions with 49 career recipients of the PSAC Top 10 award. Clarion has 41 all-time honorees while Slippery Rock boasts 39. Edinboro, East Stroudsburg and IUP have totaled 38 award winners.
It is also the ninth consecutive competitive season that Shippensburg has had a PSAC Top 10 award winner.
The PSAC Top 10 awards were first granted in the fall of 1997.
Notes: Kline, currently an assistant coach with her alma mater, is the only one of the five-time honorees to also earn a PSAC Top 10 award in a sport besides cross country or track & field, as she was twice honored for field hockey in addition to her work as a hurdler and 400-meter specialist on the Golden Bear track team…Spence, Hackenberg and Kline are the only athletes in PSAC history to win a PSAC Top 10 award in four consecutive seasons.
