Natalie Bitetti Earns West Region Athlete of the Year Honor

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Junior Natalie Bitetti captured the Division III Women's Cross Country West Region Athlete of the Year honor from the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, the organization announced today.

In addition, Marina Muncan earned the West Region Coach of the Year honor after guiding the Athenas to the regional title and an automatic team bid to the NCAA Championships. 

Bitetti adds the West Region Athlete of the Year honor to the SCIAC Athlete of the Year accolades that she earned two weeks ago. She won both the SCIAC Championship (held at Pomona-Pitzer) and the West Region Championship (hosted by Whitworth in Spokane, Washington), adding those to two regular season first-place finishes at the Redlands Invitational and the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational. 

Bitetti has run in six races this fall and has essentially won an award each time. During all four of her regular season races, she earned the SCIAC Athlete of the Week honor, which also included finishing third out of 395 runners at the Paul Short Run, and earning the highest Division III finish at the UC Riverside Invitational. She earned the SCIAC Athlete of the Year award after winning the league title, and then won the West Region Athlete of the Year honor after her regional championship. 

Bitetti and the Athenas will be back in action this weekend for the NCAA Division III Championships in Lansing, Michigan, as they will try to compete for a national title. A year ago, CMS finished about as close as you possibly can to winning it, falling two points short of Johns Hopkins in a meet that essentially came down to one second from one runner at the finish line. Bitetti was one of four All-Americans that the Athenas had last year, along with Meredith Bloss, who is also returning, and Emily Clarke and Riley Harmon, who graduated last year.