With a first-place finish of 21.48.6 at the 2026 Women's Cross Country SCIAC Championship, Olivia Backholm was named the conference's Athlete of the Year. She took the top spot in the individual standings by nearly seven seconds and beat her 2025 time by almost 49 seconds.
Fellow Athena Isla Duncan earned Newcomer of the Year honors following an impressive rookie season, culminating with a 10th-place performance at the conference championship. The San Diego, Calif., native was a three-time SCIAC Athlete of the Week this year and registered the fourth-fastest 6k time in program history at the UC Riverside Invitational with a time of 20:37.6.
A third CMS runner claimed the Celia Peterson Award in Sadie Drucker. The award is presented to a senior athlete who best exemplifies the conference's high ideals during their association with SCIAC Cross Country. Drucker, a Biology and Data Science major, has studied novel methods of seperating bacterial and human DNA at three seperate research insitututes in both Claremont and Portland. As a runner, the senior bounced back from several injuries and captured 20th place at the SCIAC Championship.
Kirk Reynolds and his staff led Pomona-Pitzer to its first conference title since 1991 and were tabbed as the Coaching Staff of the Year. Each of the Sagehens' top-seven runners placed inside of the top-10 of the individual standings for a team score of 22. It was also the first time since 1980 that both the Pomona-Pitzer men's and women's teams won the SCIAC Championship.
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Athlete
of the Year
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Newcomer
of the Year
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Celia Peterson
Award
|
Coaching
Staff of the Year
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Olivia Backholm
CMS
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Isla Duncan
CMS
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Sadie Drucker
CMS
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Kirk Reynolds
Pomona-Pitzer
|
| First Team All-SCIAC |
| Name |
Institution |
Year |
Hometown |
| Olivia Backholm |
CMS |
Jr. |
Los Altos, Calif. |
| Megan Walter |
Pomona-Pitzer |
Sr. |
Atlanta, Ga. |
| Lily Maycock |
Pomona-Pitzer |
Jr. |
Portland, Ore. |
| Kendall Madine |
Pomona-Pitzer |
Jr. |
Niwot, Colo. |
| Kylie Brunelli |
CMS |
So. |
Aptos, Calif. |
| Maggie Avey |
Pomona-Pitzer |
Sr, |
Eagle, Idaho |
| Eva Novy-Hildesley |
Pomona-Pitzer |
Sr. |
Portland, Ore. |
| Fiona Bodkin |
Pomona-Pitzer |
Sr. |
Los Altos, Calif. |
| Anna Hirsch |
Pomona-Pitzer |
Fy. |
Wenatchee, Wash. |
| Isla Duncan |
CMS |
Fy. |
San Diego, Calif. |
| Second Team All-SCIAC |
| Name |
Institution |
Year |
Hometown |
| Nevis Murphy |
CMS |
Fy. |
Lafayette, Calif. |
| Kendall Madine |
Pomona-Pitzer |
So. |
Niwot, Colo. |
| Brannan Rosenfeld |
CMS |
Jr. |
Portland, Ore. |
| Julieta Ochoa |
CMS |
Jr. |
Denver, Colo. |
| Revere Schmidt |
CMS |
Sr. |
Carlsbad, Calif. |
| Talia Green |
CMS |
Jr. |
Oakland, Calif. |
| Elizabeth Newman |
Pomona-Pitzer |
Jr. |
New York, N.Y. |
| Victoria Vahi |
Occidental |
Fy. |
Tallinn, Estonia |
| Jie Yi Denise Chen |
CMS |
Jr. |
Claremont, Calif. |
| Sadie Drucker |
CMS |
Sr. |
Portland, Ore. |
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