June 6, 2011

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Stanford's Elliott Heath and Jason Dunn were honored when the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) announced Monday the 73 award winners of USTFCCCA Regional Awards for the 2011 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field season. Heath was honored as the West Region track athlete of the year, while Dunn was named the region's assistant coach of the year.

Both will be on hand for the final rounds of the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships to take place later this week, June 8-11, in Des Moines, Iowa.

Heath enters this weekend's Final Championships Competition with the fastest time on the season in the 5,000 meters and the thirteenth-fastest time in the 10,000 meters. A senior from Winona, Minn., Heath scored in both events at the recent Pacific-10 Conference Championships. His season-best time of 13:26.14 in the 5,000 meters is less than two seconds shy of the all-time top 10 performance list for American collegians in the event.

Dunn has four athletes qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 10K, two in the 5K, and two in the steeplechase. Those eight qualifying marks are the most distance entries of any program. His distance runners helped Stanford to a fifth-place finish at the Pac-10 Championships by scoring 51 points. As a team, Stanford is currently ranked 11th in the country.

Both Heath and Dunn won the same awards during the indoor season as well.