Fast on the track, Ostrander and Kurgat are academic champs too

Allie Ostrander and Caroline Kurgat are as smart as they are fast.

Both are national champions on the track, and both are first-team All-America selections for their excellence in the classroom.

Ostrander, a Kenai Central graduate and redshirt sophomore at Boise State, repeated as the Division I women's steeplechase champion earlier this month. On Thursday, she was one of 17 women to claim first-team Division I academic honors for cross country and track.

Kurgat, a UAA junior who captured Division II national championships in the 5,000 and 10,000 last month, was among 15 women to earn first-team Division II academic honors.

Ostrander carries a 4.0 grade-point average as a kinesiology major. Earlier in the school year, she received an NCAA Elite 90 award, given to the best scholar-athlete at each of the Division I national championship events. Ostrander was the women's cross country winner.

Kurgat, who is from Eldoret, Kenya, has a 3.58 GPA as a nursing and medical lab tech major. She won three national championships in 2017-18 — in addition to the two track titles last month, she won the DII cross-country title in November.

On Monday, Kurgat will be in Los Angeles to accept the DII Honda Athlete of the Year award.

Kurgat is the third UAA athlete to garner first-team All-America academic awards in 2017-18 — a first in school history. The others are hockey goalie Olivier Mantha and cross-country skier Hailey Swirbul. She has no cross country eligibility remaining but has one more season in track.

[Running doesn't scare me anymore' — Kurgat is UAA's first DII athlete of the year]