June 2, 2011
TEMPE – The College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) announced the Capital One Academic All-District VIII honorees for men’s and women’s cross country/track and field on June 2 and three members of the Arizona State University program have been honored, including two men and one woman. Ben Engelhardt and Jamie Sandys were selected to the district’s first team for the men while Samantha Henderson earned second-team honors for the women.
With their selections to the District VIII First Team, both Engelhardt and Sandys are now eligible to earn Capital One Academic All-America honors, which will be announced later this month. The selections for all three Sun Devils gives the cross country/track and field program at least one District VIII selection since 2005 while the two men’s selections gives the program at least two honorees in each of the past four seasons. The two first-team accolades for the men’s program continues a streak of four years in a row in which two Sun Devil men were voted to the first team. Overall, 13 women and eight men have combined to earn 34 total District VIII accolades dating back to the 2001 season. Of those 34 selections, 23 were to the first team in the district.
Engelhardt is the only Sun Devil this year selected to the District VIII list for the second time in his career as he was a second-team honoree in 2009 while Sandys and Henderson are both being honored for the first time. Engelhardt was honored earlier this season as an Academic All-Pac-10 First Team honoree for cross country for the third-time in his career and bringing his career total to six, first-team honors when including track and field. A 2010 USTFCCCA All-Academic selection for cross country and individual qualifier to the NCAA Cross Country Championships (51st overall), Engelhardt qualified for the NCAA Championship Preliminary Round meet in Eugene, Ore., last week and competed in the 10,000m run.
Sandys, an Academic All-Pac-10 First Team honoree in 2010, continued to show improvement all season and broke the 7,000-point barrier in the decathlon outdoors by scoring 7,061 points to rank 10th all-time in the event in program history. Before improving his outdoor decathlon score by over 850 points this spring, he competed in the heptathlon indoors and became only the second ASU man to break 5,000 points, bettering his heptathlon personal-best score by 1,155 points.
Of the three Sun Devils honored, Henderson is the lone remaining competitor in the NCAA Championships as the multi-event standout will head to Des Moines, Iowa, from June 8-11 to compete in the heptathlon, where she is ranked eighth nationally this year with her score of 5,470 points. That total, which came at the Pac-10 Championships and led to her first conference title, ranks as the third-best total in program history. She also finished fourth in the Pac-10 high jump competition with a huge personal-best clearance of 1.80m (5-10.75), which ranks sixth all-time at ASU. Last week in Eugene, she qualified for and competed in the long jump as she ranked among the Top 25 in the west in the event.
Henderson and 12 of her teammates, including four men and eight other women, will close out the 2011 collegiate season at Drake in Des Moines next week as they will compete in the NCAA Championship Finals with the Top 8 earning points toward team titles while also securing All-America honors.
All-Time Academic All-Distric VIII Selections for Arizona State
Men
2011: Ben Engelhardt (1st team), Jamie Sandys (1st team)
2010: Brandon Bethke (1st team), Jason Lewis (1st team), Ryan Whiting (1st team)
2009: Jason Lewis (1st team), Ryan Whiting (1st team), Ben Engelhardt (2nd team)
2008: Justin Kremer (1st team), Ryan Whiting (1st team), Jason Lewis (2nd team)
2005: Kal Clark (1st team)
2001: Marcus Brunson (2nd team)
Women
2011: Samantha Henderson (2nd team)
2010: Cj Navarro (1st team), Angela Spadafino (1st team), Dominique’ Maloy (2nd team)
2009: Ali Kielty (1st team), Sarah Stevens (1st team)
2008: April Kubistha (1st team), Sarah Stevens (1st team), Ali Kielty (2nd team)
2007: Brooke Bennett (2nd team), April Kubishta (2nd team), Sarah Stevens (2nd team)
2006: Brooke Bennett (1st team), Rachel Ellison (1st team), Victoria Jackson (2nd team)
2005: Jennifer Kowacz (1st team)
2003: Lisa Aguilera (1st team)
2002: Lisa Aguilera (1st team), Kelly MacDonald (1st team)
2001: Lisa Aguilera (1st team), Kelly MacDonald (2nd team)