Bucknam and Heymsfield Honored by SEC

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Arkansas men’s cross country head coach Chris Bucknam has been selected as the 2015 SEC Coach of the Year following his team’s sixth consecutive conference title win at the SEC Championships on Oct. 30.

In addition, Christian Heymsfield, the Razorbacks’ top finisher at the conference meet, picked up the 2015 SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year award for his second-place performance and 4.0 grade point average in biomedical engineering.

This is the sixth honor for Bucknam and the first for Heymsfield within cross country.

Since arriving in Fayetteville in 2008, Bucknam has been instrumental in solidifying Arkansas’ claim as the top distance program in the SEC. Three out of the last six SEC individual champions have been Razorbacks, two of which continued on to experience success at the NCAA cross country championships.

Originally predicted to finish second at the conference meet in preseason polls, Bucknam guided Arkansas through a challenging regular season which assisted the team in becoming the only nationally ranked SEC program at No. 8.

A 2014 NCAA Elite 89 winner, Heymsfield maintained his strong academic standing within the engineering program at Arkansas. The redshirt junior embodies the true definition of scholar-athlete, excelling in the classroom and on the cross country course.

A native of Elkins, Ark., Heymsfield raced to the runner-up spot paving the way for the Razorbacks to collect their 40th cross country conference victory.

Arkansas looks to continue their forward progress by defending the NCAA South Central Regional title this Friday in College Station, Texas. The Razorbacks will race the 10K on the Dale Watts Cross Country Course at 11 a.m. CST.

For more information on Arkansas track and field including in-meet updates, follow @RazorbackTF on Twitter.