DALLAS – The 2021 Conference USA Cross Country individual champions swept the C-USA Cross Country Athlete of the Year awards, presented by Whoop, as Rice’s Grace Forbes and Charlotte’s Paul Arredondo were selected by the league’s head coaches for their 2021 performances.
Forbes repeated as the C-USA champion as she finished with a 6K time of 20:24.0 to become the league’s first back-to-back champion since Rice’s Cali Roper in 2014 and 2015. The sophomore went on to win the NCAA South Central Regional to help her team qualify for the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2010, where she finished 45th overall. Forbes won five of her seven races on the year, finishing second in another and was named the C-USA Athlete of the Week three times. Additionally, Forbes earned a spot on the C-USA All-Academic Team.
Arredondo is the back-to-back C-USA Outstanding Senior of the Year after he took home his first conference championship in October. Arredondo finished in a time of 23:43, 10 seconds ahead of second-place, and went on to earn an individual spot at the NCAA Championships after placing seventh at the Southeast Regional. The senior was a Southeast All-Region honoree with his 29:26 10k time.