Barton's Couto earns national award, Young garners conference honor as duo post historic performances #GoBarton

Ana Couto and Christopher Young of the nationally 2nd ranked Barton Community College track and field program have earned distinctive honors following historic performances this past weekend in Canyon, Texas, at the Jo Meaker Classic & Multi hosted by West Texas A&M University.

Couto earned not only the KJCCC's Field Athlete award for the fourth week of the outdoor season announced on Tuesday as one day later added the national NJCAA honor being named as the Division I Women's Athlete of the Week.

Placing second in the two-day heptathlon, Couto accumulated 5,117 points for the 7th most in program history and the NJCAA's 12th most all-time.

Couto began her grueling seven-event trek with a national qualifying 100m hurdle 14.16 time for second place, adding a first place in the shot put and a pair of second placings to pile up the most points since Ayesha Champagnie's program third most 5397 points in the 2016 season.

The freshman is into her first collegiate year of outdoor competition, coming off a NJCAA pentathlon national championship in the indoor season after racking up a program and national all-time 2nd best 3945 points.

An additional indoor qualifier in the shot put and 60m hurdles, Couto finished 12th in the ball of steel throw before false starting in the hurdles after clocking a nation's 9th best time in the event during the pentathlon competition.

Young's second KJCCC Field Athlete of the Week honor, the freshman's first of the outdoor, comes after leading another solid outing from the throwing group.

Week after week, the throwing group for both the women's and men's team seemingly make impacts on the program record book. This past week Young led a pair of freshmen climbing into the shot put chart.

Young won the event, marking a program 6th best 18.11m throw, placed second in the discus on a 51.68m distance, and added a seventh place finish in the hammer throw at 46.29m.

The efforts were just ahead of fellow collegiate first-year thrower Christopher Crawford who finished runner-up to Young in the shot put on a program 8th best 17.89m throw but beat out Young for the discus title on a 54.65m. Sophomore Brandon Lloyd, who already has the program's 5th best shot put 18.15m mark, finished 4th behind the duo in the shot at 16.99m and discus at 48.78m. The trio also went 7-10-12 in Friday's hammer throw, Young's personal best 51.22 increasing his national qualifying spot, Lloyd marking a personal best 48.75m to reach national standards, and Crawford's personal best 46.54m coming up short of joining the two on the national stage of the event.

The Cougars' next meet comes this Saturday in Newton participating in the Bethel Invite.