CSC Academic All-District® Cross Country and Track & Field Release
Senior Isabelle Hoover, senior Morgan Kromer, sophomore Igna Mendez, junior Athena Tharenos, and junior Ainsley Wiesner were among the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District® honorees for women's cross country and track & field, as announced by the organization on Wednesday afternoon.
Hoover, a NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipient, won four individual North Coast Athletic Conference titles during her career. The alumna's sweep of the NCAC indoor 3,000 (10:32.11) and 5,000 meters (17:47.61) titles in 2022 resulted in NCAC Indoor Distance Athlete of the Year honors at a meet where Wooster logged its highest NCAC finish since 1997. Hoover won back-to-back NCAC titles in the 10,000 meters in 2021 (38:00.59) and 2022 (36:51.49). The 10-time all-conference performer was a two-time first-teamer in cross country, where she placed fourth in 2022 at 23:54.9 to become the program's highest finisher since W Association Hall of Famer and five-time All-American Katie Wieferich was the individual champion in 2006. The 10-time NCAC Athlete of the Week helped Wooster to its highest conference cross country finish since 1998 in 2021.
The two-time Academic All-District® honoree is an accomplished researcher. The five-time U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Academic qualifier had multiple papers selected for publication or presentation at various national conferences. She landed an internship in the registrar's office at The Metropolitan Museum, the largest art museum in the United States. She aided with filing and archiving of insurance paperwork, shipping paperwork, condition reports, and legal documentation. Hoover also assisted with budgeting, planning, installation, and deinstallation of special exhibitions and uploading information into museum systems. The art history and classical languages alumna also held an internship at the Toledo Museum of Art and will pursue a master's of philosophy degree in art history and architecture at the University of Cambridge.
Kromer earned her third- and fourth-career All-NCAC honors this season, with those headlined by winning the indoor pole vault at the NCAC Championships with a school-record clearance of 11 feet, 4.25 inches. During the outdoor season, Kromer's 10 feet, 9 inches in the pole vault at the conference meet was the runner-up mark and she earned All-Ohio honors after getting over the crossbar at 11 feet, 3 inches at the All-Ohio Championships. The mathematics and studio art alumna earned All-NCAC honors at each of her last three conference meets.
Mendez, a three-time All-NCAC performer, earned All-Ohio honors for the fourth time as part of Wooster's third-place 4x400 relay (4:10.79) in April. The third All-Ohio honor came as part of Wooster's third-place 4x400 relay which crossed at 4:12.73 at the mid-February championships meet. The middle-distance specialist was a conference scorer for the Scots this year on the outdoor 4x400 relay (fourth-place, 4:40.89), the indoor 4x400 relay (sixth-place, 4:16.68), and the distance medley relay (seventh-place, 14:50.25). She is a two-year letterwinner on the cross country team.
The economics major is the College's Chile ambassador for International Student Services. Mendez is awarded a stipend to research the country's social, political, and economic status through the ambassador program. Mendez presented this research to the Wayne County Retired Teachers Association and the Women's Advisory Board scholarship luncheon. She hosted an exhibit in The College of Wooster Art Museum with some of the research findings on display. Mendez is a calculus tutor through the College's STEM Zone and is a teaching assistant within the Department of Economics. She also works as an intern within the College's Academic Resource Center.
Tharenos, a nine-time All-NCAC performer, earned her second USTFCCCA All-Great Lakes Region honor in the 3,000-meter steeplechase this spring. Tharenos broke the decade-old program record in the event with a time of 11:03.59 at the NCAC Championships, which was the runner-up time in the event. She broke the tape in the steeplechase at the All-Ohio Championships, crossing at 11:08.22. The seven-time All-Ohio and six-time NCAC Athlete of the Week honoree earned four All-Ohio honors during the 2022-23 academic year. The junior was the All-Ohio indoor 800 meters champion, breaking the tape at 2:21.86.
The anthropology, environmental geoscience, and self-designed Asian episteme triple-major missed the 2022 cross country season due to studying abroad. At the American University in Cairo, Tharenos created a comprehensive curriculum to engage Egyptian students in learning Mandarin. She assigned and graded homework, facilitated class lectures, and was a tutor. She was also a graduate researcher conceiving and implementing a sustainable development project and undertaking primary ethnographic research for a water management program. For her Independent Study, Tharenos has been conducting ethnographic research on Rhodes, a small Greek island in the Dodecanese. With the research, Tharenos has been studying land inheritance practices through interviews and participant observation and performing geoscientific and geopolitical analysis of the waning Arctic cryosphere and associated consequences. As a first-year, Tharenos was an independent ethnographic researcher for the South Grand Community Improvement District in Missouri.
Wiesner broke the College's weight throw (51 feet, 3 inches) and hammer throw (159 feet, 10 inches) records this season. The NCAC Athlete of the Week following her initial breaking of the hammer record at the Alan Connie Shamrock Invitational (136 feet, 2 inches) was a conference scorer in the outdoor hammer throw (fifth-place, 149 feet), outdoor javelin throw (eighth-place, 81 feet), and indoor weight throw (fourth-place, 50 feet, 9.25 inches) this season.
The geology major is a note taker for the College's Academic Resource Center and has volunteered at the Wildlife Discovery Center in her hometown of Lake Forest, Illinois. Wiesner volunteered for the volleyball program's Little Scots Clinics and has worked camps with Net Force Volleyball Club. This semester, Wiesner was part of a team that acquired and summarized land deeds and easement records to provide consolidated data for use in the land trust database for the Killbuck Watershed Land Trust Community Partner Project.
Wooster's Academic All-District® selections are on the Academic All-America® ballot, which is voted on by CSC members in advance of the announcement of the Academic All-America® team on June 28. Starting with the 2022-23 academic year, all eligible nominees submitted by member schools earn Academic All-District® status. Nominees were voted to the Academic All-District® Team in previously years and those winners advanced to the Academic All-America® ballot.