Mills Tabbed Honorable Mention All-American
6/13/2016 12:00:00 AM | Track and Field
NEW ORLEANS -- Gonzaga's Shelby Mills was named to the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) All-American honorable mention list Monday.
Student-athletes earned First-Team USTFCCCA All-America honors by virtue of finishing among the top-eight in their events, including as a member of a relay, at this past weekend's NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Ore. at Historic Hayward Field.
Second-Team All-America honors go to those who finish ninth through 16th and honorable mention is 17th through 24th.
Following an unbelievable cross country season, Mills continued her success on the track during the indoor and outdoor seasons. After becoming the first student-athlete in school history to run at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships last year, she returned to the national event in 2016.
Mills finished an incredible season by placing 17th in the nation in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in Eugene.
Mills automatically qualified for the 3,000-meter steeplechase national semifinals with a second-place finish in her heat at the NCAA West Preliminaries in Lawrence, Kan. Her time of 10:09.76 was eighth overall in the three heats of the 48-runner field.
The redshirt junior entered the NCAA West Preliminaries with the sixth-best seed-time (9:56.17) in the region and the second-fastest in her heat. She broke her own school record at the West Coast Invitational. Mills easily won the race on Willamette University's Charles Bowles Track and was just three seconds off of an Olympic Trials qualifying mark.
Mills opened the outdoor season by winning the women's 5,000 meters at the Buc Scoring Invite with a time of 16:25.81. The time was not only a personal record by nearly 13 seconds, but it is also the third fastest time in program history.
During the indoor season, Mills smashed the 5,000-meter mark at the Husky Classic. She raced to a 16:25.35 finish in the elite field at the Dempsey Center. Two weeks earlier, the Snohomish, Wash. native snapped Lindsay Drake's three-year-old 3,000-meter mark with a 9:35.31 finish at the UW Invitational in Seattle.
