WEST BABYLON, N.Y. – St. Thomas Aquinas senior Emmanuel Mena Jimenez (West Haverstraw, N.Y.) and Roberts Wesleyan graduate student Brynn King (The Woodlands, Texas) have been selected the 2024 ECC Outdoor Track & Field Male and Female Athletes of the Year, as voted on by the league’s head coaches and announced on Friday morning. Repeating on their indoor successes, Mena Jimenez and King had previously earned Indoor Track & Field Male (co-) and Female Athlete of the Year recognition earlier this year. Additionally, Roberts Wesleyan’s Mark McCown and District of Columbia’s Simone Grant were tabbed the ECC Outdoor Track & Field Coaches of the Year on the men’s and women’s side, respectively.

Both Mena Jimenez and King have qualified for the upcoming NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships, set for May 23-25 at Emporia State University’s Francis G. Welch Stadium in Emporia Kansas - King in the women’s pole vault (No. 1) and Mena Jimenez in the men’s weight throw (No. 13). 

Now the three-time defending ECC Outdoor Track & Field Male Athlete of the Year, Mena Jimenez competed 20 times across the hammer throw, discus, and shot put this spring and only twice placed outside of the top three. Mena Jimenez won the hammer throw all seven times in which he competed in the event and won the discus three times (2nd - 2x, 3rd - 2x) and shot put three times. On the ECC stage, Mena Jimenez won all three of those individual events, totaling 30 points for the runner-up Spartans. Mena Jimenez leads the NCAA East Region and ranks 13th in the nation in the discus (54.92m/180' 2”), leads the NCAA East Region and ranks 28th in the nation in the hammer throw (59.18m/194' 2”), and ranks sixth in the NCAA East Region in the shot put (15.39m/50' 6”). 

Coming off of one of the most historic individual indoor seasons in ECC track and field history in which she won the NCAA Division II national title in the pole vault, King continued to impress in her outdoor campaign, winning all five of her pole vault events. Perhaps one of her most impressive performances came at the 96th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays back on March 30, where the Woodlands, Texas native set the Division II and meet record of 4.68 meters (15’ 4 1/4”). She then followed that up by breaking the 13-year-old record (4.51m/14’ 9 1/2”) at the 101st Kansas Relays on April 19 and before most recently crushing the ECC Outdoor Track & Field Championships meet record (4.60m/15’ 1”). King now owns the top three women’s pole vault marks in NCAA Division II history and is the only Division II athlete to receive votes for The Bowerman Watch List, collegiate track and field's highest honor. 

After leading the Redhawks to their second consecutive ECC men’s outdoor title and fifth in program history with a 47-point win over St. Thomas Aquinas, McCown earns ECC Men’s Outdoor Track & Field Coach of the Year recognition. 

Grant receives her first ECC Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Coach of the Year accolade after leading UDC to its second-ever ECC women’s title and first since 2014 in knocking off eight-time defending champion Roberts Wesleyan by 37 points.