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BUFFALO, NY - Jenny Koeppel (Amherst, NY/Amherst) and Faith Thompson (Niagara Falls, NY/Niagara Falls) have been chosen as the University at Buffalo's nominees for the 15th annual NCAA Woman of the Year Award. The award program honors senior student-athletes for their achievement in service, leadership, athletics and academics. Koeppel and Thompson where chosen for their balanced commitment to these four areas.

Jenny Koeppel

Koeppel became the University at Buffalo's most accomplished distance runner during the course of her four-year career. Koeppel won the 2004 MAC cross country title in a time of 17:51.70, and she became the first women's cross country runner to compete at the NCAA Cross Country Championship in UB's Division I history. The senior earned All-Northeast honors for the second straight year with a ninth-place finish at the regional meet and then went on to finish 56th at the national meet in a field of 250 runners. She was a first-team All-MAC and Academic All-MAC selection and a four-time MAC Runner of the Week during the 2004 cross country season. The cross country title was the second MAC title of Koeppel's career. She also won the 10,000-meter title at the 2004 MAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Koeppel was a two-year team captain of the cross country and track and field teams, and she graduated with a 3.664 grade point average as a mathematics major. She was an active member of UB's Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and also volunteered with the All Day/All Night Relay Challenge which raises money for the Amherst Youth Board. In addition, she was the selected student-athlete speaker at UB's National Girls and Women in Sports Day Celebration in 2005. Koeppel was the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Scholar-Athlete Award for women's cross country and was UB's Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2004-05.

Faith Thompson

Thompson is one of the most successful track and field athletes in the history of UB athletics. She holds four school records (indoor shot put, indoor 20-pound weight throw, outdoor shot put, outdoor hammer), and she won MAC titles in the indoor weight throw and outdoor hammer in 2004-05. Thompson recently finished third at the NCAA East Regional meet in the hammer, and she will make her first NCAA Championships appearance June 8-11 in Sacramento, CA. She was a three-year team captain of the indoor and outdoor track and field team.

Thompson is a two-time Academic All-District I honoree, earning first-team honors in 2002-03 and second-team honors in 2001-02, and she was the recipient of the 2004-05 SUNY Chancellor's Scholar-Athlete Award for women's track and field. She holds an undergraduate degree in psychology and is pursuing a master's degree in school counseling. Thompson had a 3.973 grade point average as an undergraduate and has a 4.0 GPA as a graduate student.

The NCAA Woman of the Year and the 52 winners representing each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico will be honored at a dinner in Indianapolis on October 29, 2005. Koeppel and Thompson will each receive a certificate honoring them as NCAA Woman of the Year nominees from the University at Buffalo.

Written by Samantha Amy Frishman, UB Athletic Communications Intern