March 16, 2017
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -
San Diego State junior Ashley Henderson was selected as the 2017 Mountain West Women's Indoor Track & Field Student-Athlete of the Year, the conference announced today.
The Student-Athlete-of-the-Year award recognizes the outstanding female and male athletes in the sport of indoor track and field. Student-athletes are nominated and selected by the head coaches of each member institution.
Henderson captured two United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Indoor Track & Field First-Team All-American nods for her fourth-place finishes in the 60- and 200-meter dashes at the 2017 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships last weekend. She was the only MW athlete this year to win first-team All-American accolades in multiple events.
At the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships, Henderson ran the 60 in 7.216, beating out Deajah Stevens from Oregon (7.218) and Kortnei Johnson from LSU (7.220). In the 200, which was split into two four-person sections, Henderson won the first section with her 22.83 time, finishing fourth in the race.
This season, Henderson was the Mountain West Indoor Track and Field Championship Women's Outstanding Performer of the Meet and an all-conference performer after winning the 60- and 200-meter dashes at the conference meet. Those performances broke the SDSU and MW all-time marks, as she ran the second-best 60 (7.17) and sixth-best 200 (22.81) in Division I this season. The St. Louis native was one of two Mountain West sprinters in the 60 and the lone conference representative in the 200.
The 2016 Mountain West Women's Outdoor Track & Field Student-Athlete of the Year, Henderson is the Aztecs' first Indoor Track & Field Student-Athlete of the Year since three-time NCAA triple jump champion Shanieka Thomas swept the 2013 awards. She is just the second Aztec to win the award under SDSU's eight-year head coach Shelia Burrell.