Texas A&M only school to have four semifinalists for 2016 Bowerman Award

NEW ORLEANS – Texas A&M has four athletes among the semifinalists for the Bowerman Award, which recognizes the top male and female track and field athlete for the collegiate season. Over the course of the next two days the 10 semifinalists in each gender will be trimmed to three finalists.

Representing the Aggies among the women's semifinalists are Shamier Little and Maggie Malone. The women's finalists will be announced on Thursday at 2 p.m. CT via a live webcast on TheBowerman.org. 

On the men's semifinalists list from Texas A&M are Donavan Brazier and Lindon Victor. The announcement for the men's finalists will occur at 1 p.m. CT on Friday.

Texas A&M was the lone school to have four semifinalists for the 2016 Bowerman Award. All four of the Aggie semifinalists recently claimed individual titles during the NCAA Championships held in Eugene, Oregon, and a pair of them – Brazier and Malone – established collegiate records with their winning performances. 

Brazier ran 1:43.55 in the 800m to break numerous records, including a 50-year-old college best and American Junior record of 1:44.3 set by Jim Ryun. A throw of 204 feet in the javelin by Malone broke the collegiate record of 202-10 that was set in 2004.

Little claimed her third consecutive NCAA title in the 400m hurdles as her winning time of 53.51 seconds, which is second fastest on the all-time collegiate list. Little lowered her school record of 53.74 that she set in last year's NCAA final and is the current world, U.S. and collegiate leader in the event for the 2016 season.

In the decathlon Victor produced a score of 8,379 points to claim the NCAA title over an 8,300 runner-up score by Wisconsin's Zach Ziemek and an 8,294 tally from two-time defending national champion Maicel Uibo of Georgia.  

Victor threatened the collegiate record of 8,465 set in 2006 during the SEC Championships when he produced a meet record of 8,446 points to defeat Uibo, who had won the past three conference decathlon titles. Victor's score ranks fourth on the all-time collegiate list.