IRVINE, Calif. – After defending his individual PacWest title and helping Biola defend its team title, Gabe Plendcio was voted by the PacWest coaches as the 2019 PacWest Runner of the Year, leading the awards for the all-conference team.
 
James Young from Academy of Art was selected as the Newcomer of the Year, Azusa Pacific’s Nixon Korir won the Freshman of the Year, and Sean Henning from Biola was the Coach of the Year. The All-PacWest team is determined by the results of the PacWest Championships, while the special awards are voted on based on individuals’ entire season.
 
Plendcio dominated the 2019 regular season, winning four PacWest Runner of the Week awards. He helped Biola win two races this season prior to taking the trophy at the PacWest Championships. He won individual titles at the Biola Invitational, Sundowner Invitational and the SF State Invitational. He entered the PacWest Championships as the favorite to win the title and lived up to the expectations, winning the race by 11 seconds for his second career conference title. He became the first PacWest runner since 2011 to win the conference race two years in a row.
 
Young was Academy of Art’s top finisher at the PacWest Championships. He transferred as a graduate student and helped Academy of Art take third place at the conference championships. He finished in sixth place with a time of 25:39.01 to earn recognition on the first team All-PacWest.
 
Korir was a bright spot for Azusa Pacific during the regular season, and he had his second-best result of the season at the PacWest Championships, taking eighth place with a time of 25:42.5. He helped Azusa Pacific finish in seventh place as a team. At the Capital Cross, he recorded his best time in an 8K race, finishing the course in 25:40.8.
 
Henning was awarded by his peers his third PacWest Coach of the Year award. He helped lead Biola to three wins this year, including the first-place finish at the PacWest Championships. Each of the top-3 finishers at the race were Biola runners and a total of four Eagles were named to the first team All-PacWest. He becomes the third PacWest coach to earn the award three times joining Ben Gall from California Baptist and Norman Kaluhiokalani from BYU Hawaii.