Westfall, Johnson earn third Sooner Athletic Conference awards of season

For the third time in three weeks, Wayland Baptist track & field student-athletes Raheema Westfall and Zachary Johnson have been recognized by the Sooner Athletic Conference. Westfall was honored as women's track athlete of the week while Johnson was recognized as men's field athlete of the week after their efforts at the Pittsburg State Invitational in Pittsburg, Kan.

Westfall ran the NAIA's second-fastest time this season in the 60, 7.47 seconds. She actually did it twice, first in the preliminaries then repeating the time in the finals. Westfall, an eight-time NAIA All-American, is a senior from St. Louis.

Johnson, a junior from Spring, Texas, and first-year transfer from Sam Houston State, turned in the NAIA's longest triple jump of the season, 49 feet, 8½ inches. His long jump of 23-11½ is the NAIA's fourth-best of the year. Johnson finished second in both events, from a field of 37 in the long jump and 17 in the triple jump. "He's getting better and better every week," WBU coach Brian Whitlock said.

Zouhair Talbi from Oklahoma City University was the men's runner of the week after beating the 4-minute mile mark. The junior from Morocco blazed to the No. 1 time in the NAIA this season and the OCU program record for the mile with a mark of 3 minutes, 59.50 seconds. Talbi also anchored OCU's distance medley relay to the best time in the NAIA this season (9:59.32).