Two guys named Sean shared the Coach of the Year award, one Benjamin won two awards and a Eagle freshman ran away with the top rookie honor in the 2022 Pacific West Conference Men’s Cross Country awards.

Sean Smith of Azusa Pacific and Sean Henning of Biola are the PacWest Co-Coaches of the Year. Biola’s Benjamin White is both the Runner of the Year and the Newcomer of the Year, while BU’s Ryan Todd was named the Freshman of the Year.

The end of the year awards are voted on by the conference’s coaches, but this was the first year that the entire season of results came into play with the vote taken after the national championships. That ultimately fed into the sharing of the Coach of the Year award for Biola’s Henning and Azusa Pacific’s Smith.

Sean Henning’s Eagles won the PacWest Championship, just edging the Cougars by a point. APU had the best PacWest finish at the NCAA West Regionals, finishing in third. Sean Smith’s Cougars then went on to finish 21^st at the NCAA Championships.

Henning also won the award in 2018 and 2019 with the Eagles, and was the PacWest Coach of the Year while at California Baptist in 2011. It was the first such award for Smith, who is in just his second year as the leader at APU.

Benjamin White made an immediate and a huge impact on the champion Biola program as a grad transfer from nearby Whittier College. He won the very first race he entered as an Eagle, capturing the Vanguard Invitational, and then a few weeks later he also won the Pomona-Pitzer Invite.

He ground the field into submission at the PacWest Championships, taking the lead early and setting a blistering pace. He won by three seconds over Bryan Banuelos of Fresno Pacific with a time of 24:22 on the 10 kilometer course. He went on to finish fourth the at the Division II West Region Championships in Montana, the top PacWest finisher at the race.

White’s teammate Ryan Todd was also new to the Eagles and is the Freshman of the Year. The San Diego native (Santa Fe Christian) finished seventh at the PacWest Championships to earn First Team All-PacWest honors, the only freshman to finish in the top 20 at the race. At the regional championships, Todd finished 29^th, just missing out on all-region honors (top 25) but he had the highest finish of any freshman in the field.

The top seven finishers at the PacWest Championships on November 5 in San Leandro automatically earned First Team All-PacWest honors. The next seven are Second Team and spots 15-21 claim Third Team awards.

It was the third All-PacWest award for Fresno Pacific’s Banuelos, same for Azusa Pacific’s Nixon Korir. Both were First Team honorees this season. Biola’s Brady DeHaven was honored for the fourth time in his career, just the third time in PacWest men’s cross country history that someone has been on a All-PacWest team four times. Academy of Art’s Hudson Lockette was named for the third time. Both DeHaven and Lockette were on the Third Team in 2022.
 

2022 ALL-PACWEST MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY AWARDS
Runner of the Year	Newcomer of the Year	Freshman of the Year	Coaches of the Year
Benjamin White Biola	Benjamin White Biola	Ryan Todd Biola	Sean Smith-APU Sean Henning-Biola

 

2022 ALL-PACWEST MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY TEAM
Name	School	Class	Hometown/Previous School
FIRST TEAM
Benjamin White	Biola	Sr.	La Habra Heights, Calif. / Whittier College
Bryan Banuelos**	Fresno Pacific	Jr.	Fresno, Calif. / Edison HS
Jerry Baltzer*	Biola	So.	Whittier, Calif. / La Serna HS
Nixon Korir **	Azusa Pacific	Jr.	Eldoret, Kenya / Kemeloi Boys School
Salvador Capetillo	Azusa Pacific	Jr.	Los Angeles, Calif. / Adams State
Ryan Todd	Biola	Fr.	San Diego, Calif. / Santa Fe Christian HS
Xavier Smith*	Fresno Pacific	Sr.	Lake Forest, Calif. / El Toro HS
SECOND TEAM
Jared Wright*	Dominican	Jr.	Castle Rock, Colo. / Castle View HS
Felix Perrier	Azusa Pacific	So.	Grenoble, France / Grenoble
Didier Sandoval*	Azusa Pacific	So.	Glendora, Calif. / Glendora HS
Riley Burns*	Azusa Pacific	So.	San Diego, Calif. / Maranatha HS
Ryan Sorensen*	Biola	Jr.	Santa Barbara, Calif./Santa Barbara CC
Abesolom Teffra*	Fresno Pacific	So.	Fresno, Calif. / Central HS
Rodney Chemalmal	Fresno Pacific	Fr.	Kaptagat, Kenya
THIRD TEAM
Brady DeHaven***	Biola	Sr.	San Diego, Calif. / Granite Hills HS
Jacob Potere	Dominican	Sr.	Las Vegas, Nev. / Spring Valley HS
Aidan Tomasini	Biola	So.	Aromas, Calif. / Aptos HS
Juan Sebastian Garcia	Concordia	So.	Bogata, Columbia / QSI Almaty International
Hudson Lockette **	Academy of Art	Sr.	Kailua, Hawaii / James B. Castle HS
David Berardi	Concordia	So.	Temecula, Calif. / Temecula Valley HS
Logan McNamar	Holy Names	Sr.	Pittsburg, Calif. / Pittsburg HS