SWOCC athletes honored by NWAC

A trio of Southwestern Oregon Community College athletes received NWAC athlete of the week honors for their sports recently.

Taylor Dickey was honored as the female track athlete of the week. The freshman from Reno set a new SWOCC record in the steeplechase at Oregon State University’s PNW Invite, clocking a time of 11:30.81 after earlier in the day trying the 400 hurdles for the first time. Dickey finished seventh out of 22 runners in the steeplechase racing against a combination of NCAA, NAIA and community college racers. The following day, she ran the 800 meters in 2:21.03, just a few seconds off her new school record set a week earlier.

Lydia Montes De Oca, another freshman on the track team from Aloha High School in Beaverton also was honored as track athlete of the week. De Oca broke Dickey’s new school record in the 800 on Saturday at the John Knight Twilight meet and leads NWAC in the 800 (2:19.27), 1,500 (4:39.60) and 5,000 (18:01.01).

In the fall, Dickey finished first and Montes De Oca second as the Lakers won their first NWAC title in cross country.

Hunter Salausa-Galletes, a freshman from Hawaii, was named softball hitter of the week Salausa-Galletes is hitting .508 for the season with four home runs and 27 RBIs for the Lakers.

Also recently honored was Bandon graduate Aunika Miller, who runs for Umpqua Community College. Miller set the Umpqua school record in the 10,000 meters when she ran the fastest time by an NWAC runner this spring with her mark of 38:11.62. She ranks second in NWAC in the 5K and 1,500 and fifth in the 800.