Men's Cross Country | 04.26.2020

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho – Lewis-Clark State College runner Cole Olsen, cross country and track coach Mike Collins, and the men's basketball team all captured North Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame honors, announced on Saturday.
 
The NIAHOF honors District I-II high school athletes, coaches and teams for their outstanding play, along with the athletes, coaches and teams from the University of Idaho, North Idaho College, and Lewis-Clark State College. This year's awards cover the 2019 academic spring season and the 2019-20 academic fall and winter seasons.
 
Unfortunately, because of the safety recommendations by the Center for Disease Control and the state of Idaho in dealing with the COVID 19 Coronavirus, NIAHOF officials had to cancel the annual North Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame banquet and induction ceremonies, which were scheduled for Saturday night at the Coeur d'Alene Resort.
 
Olsen shared Male Athlete of the Year honors with Nate Pryor, a guard on the NIC basketball team. Olsen had a strong 2019 track season and an outstanding fall on the Warrior cross country team. He placed fourth at the NAIA cross country championships with a time of 24:55 in a field of 335 runners. He won the Frontier Conference cross country title in 25:31.06. In the five meets the LC State men's cross country team competed in, Olsen never finished worse than third among NAIA runners.
 
In track, Olsen, who is from Clearwater, Idaho, was named the NAIA West Region Men's Indoor Track Athlete of the Year and placed sixth in the 3,000 at the NAIA national indoor meet in 8:31.83. At the 2019 NAIA outdoor meet, he was 14^th in the 10,000 meters.
 
With Olsen's strong performance at nationals in cross country, Collins, the Men's Coach of the Year, led the Warriors to a third-place finish, the program's highest finish at the meet. Ranked seventh in the NAIA heading into the meet, the Warriors had three NAIA All-Americans with Clayton VanDyke and Chase Barrow joining Olsen. VanDyke was 11^th at national meet, while Barrow was 15^th.
 
The Warriors, who did not have a senior on the squad, won the Frontier Conference title with 24 points while the next nearest finisher had 46. LC had the top three finishers at the meet and five of the top 10.
 
The LC State men's basketball team posted a 29-3 record and won both the Frontier Conference regular season and tournament titles. The team qualified for the NAIA national tournament, which was later cancelled because of the pandemic.
 
The Warrior men won 16 straight games during the regular season and beat NCAA Division 1 program Idaho 88-73 in Moscow. The team was ranked as high as No. 3 in the NAIA and was ranked No. 7 in the final regular-season poll. The 29-3 record is the best single-season winning percentage in program history. The team had just two seniors, Josiah Westbrook and Conner Moffatt, and has six players average between 8.9 and 13.1 points per game. At one point during the season, the team led all levels of men's basketball in 3-point shooting. The team finished 364-of-851 (42.8 percent) from the 3-point line, which wound up second in the NAIA.
 
Other Warriors earning honors by being named finalists were Tori Edwards of the volleyball team for Female Athlete of the Year, Darren Trainer of the baseball team for Male Athlete of the Year, men's basketball coach Austin Johnson, who won the Male Coach of the Year honors a year ago, and the LC men's cross country team.
 
The finalists in each category were announced last month. Nominations for each category are reviewed by the NIAHOF committee, which selects the finalists for each category. All finalists are normally honored at the banquet, where the winner of each category is announced. The athlete, coach and team of the year awards for college receive trophies.
 
P1FCU is the title sponsor for this year's awards, while Avista and Allegra are major sponsors.