2021 Men's Outdoor Track & Field All-Conference Team (PDF)
INDIANAPOLIS – With the national championship meet in the books, the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Outdoor Track and Field awards for the 2021 season were announced on Wednesday.
The top three place winners in each event have been recognized at the podium as part of the annual all-conference team from the Great Midwest Championships on May 5-7 at Owensboro, Ky., with Kentucky Wesleyan serving as host.
Awards for the 2021 spring season as a whole were voted upon by the coaches and the Elite 23 Award winner was also released.
The Great Midwest Men’s Track Athlete of the Year was Malone senior distance standout Noah Schaub, who completed a sweep of the honors after also earning the same award from the indoor campaign.
Schaub capped his impressive 2020-21 season with a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Championships in the 3K steeplechase with a time of 8:55.19. In the TFRRS performance chart, he was ranked sixth nationally among all Division II qualifiers.
He was also the outdoor conference champion in the 1,500-meter run while earning runner-up in the 5K distance. Schaub also set the overall conference record in the 5K earlier in the spring with a time of 14:17.60.
Tiffin senior Cameron Burrows was voted as the Great Midwest Field Athlete of the Year in a talented pool of candidates. Burrows was the national champion in the long jump as he set a new Great Midwest record of 7.74m.
Burrows was also among Division II’s best in the high jump as he finished with All-American status following a fourth-place finish.
Burrows also shattered the conference meet record in the long jump this year and was the conference outdoor champion in both long jump and high jump. He helped Tiffin to an outdoor conference team title at Owensboro, Ky.
The Great Midwest Freshman of the Year was Findlay’s Noah Fisher, who captured freshman of the meet accolades at the conference championships by winning both the 5K and 10K.
Fisher was a provisional qualifier in each of those events while possessing the best 10K time from the conference this current year. He was one of three provisional qualifiers from the league in the 5K this season as well and posted the third-best 5K time in the conference in his first year of competition.
The Great Midwest Coach of the Year went to Tiffin’s Jeremy Croy as the Dragons secured a team title at the conference championships and another top-10 team finish at the NCAA Championships in Allendale, Mich.
He helped guide many of his student-athletes to All-American finishes in Michigan including Nikolas Curtiss (shot put), Mason Plant (100m hurdles), Lenell Shelby III (400m hurdles), Lloyd McCurdy (triple jump) and Burrows (long jump/high jump).
The Elite 23 Award winner in men’s outdoor track and field was announced as Kentucky Wesleyan junior Hunter Kurz. Kurz was second team all-conference on KWC’s home track at the conference meet in the 1,500-meter run.
Kurz registered a 4.0 cumulative GPA for the Panthers at the time of the conference championship meet and is majoring in Chemistry.