NEW ORLEANS – The Sun Belt Conference announced the 2016 Sun Belt men’s and women's indoor track & field individual award winners on Wednesday. Arkansas State's Roelf Pienaar was named the Sun Belt's Most Outstanding Men's Field Performer, his second consecutive indoor honor while South Alabama's Christoph Graf was named the Sun Belt's Most Outstanding Men's Track Performer.
Graf's teammate, Sean Collins, was named the Sun Belt Most Outstanding Men's Freshman.
On the women's side, Appalachian State's Tristan Van Ord was named the Most Outstanding Women's Track Performer. LaPorscha Wells of Georgia State took home the Most Outstanding Women's Field Performer and Texas State's Tramesha Hardy was named the Most Outstanding Women's Freshman.
Appalachian State's John Weaver was named the Women's Head Coach of the Year and Texas State's Jody Stewart was named the Men's Head Coach of the Year. The honors for Weaver and Stewart were their first honors in the Sun Belt.
Pienaar's honor was the second consecutive indoor honor for the Red Wolves' standout junior. He's won back-to-back indoor triple jump titles and has finished second in each of the last two years in the long jump.
Graf, a senior, was a double champion for the Jaguars at the 2016 indoor championships claiming titles in both the mile run and the 3,000-meters. He won the 3,000-meter title in 2015 as well and was the runner-up in the mile.
Collins, a freshman, won the Sun Belt pole vault title in his first season in Mobile and was ranked as the top vaulter in the league all season long. Collins' clearance of 5.42m ranked him 16th in the nation in 2016 and earned him a spot in the 2016 Division I Indoor Track & Field National Championship.
Texas State's Stewart earned his first Head Coach of the Year award in his very first season as a head coach. Stewart took over the Bobcat program in September of 2015 and has hit the ground running with his men's squad putting on a dominating performance to win the team's first conference indoor championship since 2004. It was Texas State's first Sun Belt men's indoor team title.
Van Ord took home titles in both the 3,000-meters and 5,000-meters as she helped lead the Mountaineers to their first-ever Sun Belt women's indoor team title. Van Ord, a junior, was also victorius in the 5,000-meters in 2015 and finished as the runner-up in the 3,000-meters.
After finishing second in both the women's shot put and weight throw in 2015, Georgia State's LaPorscha Wells claimed both the 2016 championship titles and did so in convincing fashion. The junior took top honors by over two feet in each event as she helped push the Panthers to a fourth place finish in the team standings.
Hardy was instrumental in helping the Bobcat women's team to a second-place finish at the 2016 championship. Individually, Hardy was responsible for 17.5 points as she claimed first-place honors in the 200-meters, finished fourth in the 60-meters and ran the first leg of the winning 4x400-meter relay team.
App State's Weaver is no stranger to coaching honors as the longtime head coach has won a plethora of honors during his time as the leader of the Mountaineers and this season was no different. In just their second year in the league, the Mountaineers claimed the 2016 women's indoor team title. The coaching honor for Weaver in 2016 was the 13th overall Women's Head Coach of the Year award for Weaver and his first in the Sun Belt.