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BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Eastern Kentucky University senior Lydia Kosgei has been named the Ohio Valley Conference Female Track Athlete of the Week for the second consecutive week, the league office announced on Tuesday. Kosgei won the women’s 3,000 meters with a time of 9:30:33 at the Indiana University Gladstein Invitational on Friday night.

Kosgei’s time is a personal and OVC-best. It is also currently the 17th fastest indoor women’s 3,000 meters time in the country and it is less than a second off the EKU record of 9:29.39, set by Lisa Malloy in 1989.

Less than an hour after running the 3,000 meters, Kosgei, who was an honorable mention All-American in the outdoor 5,000 meters last spring, competed in the women’s mile and finished fourth with an OVC-best time of 4:50.07. That time is currently the 41st fastest in the country.

Also for the second consecutive week, Kosgei shared this week’s honors with Murray State sprinter Alexis Love.

Last week, Kosgei was named the OVC Female Track Athlete of the Week after running a 9:37.36 in the 3,000 meters and a 4:51.06 in the mile at the season-opening University of Kentucky Invitational.

EKU Men Ranked No. 9 in the Southeast Region

The EKU men’s track and field team begins the season ranked No. 9 in the Southeast Region, according to the latest U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) regional poll.

EKU is in good company, as the Colonels are ranked just ahead of such notable teams as North Carolina (No. 10), Louisville (No. 11) and Kentucky (No. 13) and just behind Duke (No. 7) and South Carolina (No. 8).

EKU features a deep and talented distance team this indoor season. Two of those distance runners, junior Soufiane Bouchikhi and senior Peter Sigilai, have already made noise on the national level, as Bouchikhi ran the fourth-fastest 3,000 meters time (8:02.77) in the country and Sigilai ran the 14th-fastest mile time (4:04.50) in the country at the Indiana Gladstein Invitational this weekend.

The EKU track and field team returns to action this weekend at the University of Kentucky-hosted Rod McCravy Memorial Meet at the E.J. Nutter Fieldhouse in Lexington.