NCAA Release

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Mizzou Track & Field senior Karissa Schweizer (Urbandale, Iowa) was named an NCAA Woman of the Year Award candidate, announced by the NCAA on Thursday. Schweizer is one of a record 581 female college athletes up for the 2018 award.

Next, conferences will select two student-athletes from the pool of school nominees to represent their conference. Then, a selection committee will choose 30 honorees, 10 from each division. From the top 30, the selection committee will pick nine finalists, three from each division in September. The top 30 honorees will be celebrated and the 2018 NCAA Woman of the Year will be announced at an award ceremony on Oct. 28, in Indianapolis.  

Schweizer concluded her brilliant collegiate career at the NCAA Outdoor Championships (June 6-9), where she recorded two All-America finishes, including a first-place finish in the 5000m run which netted her sixth career NCAA title, the most of any student-athlete in Mizzou history. With the NCAA title, Schweizer is just the second woman in NCAA history to win back-to-back NCAA titles in the indoor and outdoor 5000m runs in the same two-year span, following Arizona's Amy Skieresz in 1997-98. Schweizer's 10 All-America honors match Kearsten Peoples for the most in program history.

Schweizer became an eight-time conference champion at the SEC Outdoor Championships (May 13), as she won the 5000m run for the second-straight season with a time of 15:58.14. Schweizer's eight conference titles rank second in women's program history behind only Sabrina Dornhoefer's nine.

During the indoor season, Schweizer became the fifth female in NCAA history to win the 3000m run and 5000m national titles at the same meet. Schweizer clocked the third-fastest indoor 5000m run time in the history of the NCAA Indoor Meet, as she crossed the finish line at 15:43.23, while her time of 8:53.36 held off Boise State's Allie Ostrander in the 3000m run.

The two national titles capped a dominant 2018 indoor campaign in distance running for Schweizer, who set collegiate top-five times in the mile run, 3000m run and 5000m run in 2018. Schweizer set the collegiate record in the 3000m run at the Millrose Games (Feb. 3), winning USTFCCCA Division I Women's National Athlete of the Week and the Southeastern Conference Women's Runner of the Week honors in the process. Schweizer was the top collegiate finisher in the race, as she crossed the finish line fourth at 8:41.60. Schweizer's time surpassed the previous collegiate record from 2009 by Colorado's Jenny (Barringer) Simpson (8:42.03), as well as the Mizzou school record mark of 9:06.39, which was set by Sabrina Dornhoefer in 1984. She also clocked a time of 4:27.54 in the mile run at the Columbia Challenge (Jan. 27), the fifth-fastest time in NCAA history, and a 15:17.31 in the 5000m run at the BU Season Opener (Dec. 2, 2017), the fifth-fastest time in NCAA history. 

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