ROCHESTER, N.Y.  – The Empire 8 released its year-end outdoor track & field awards Thursday. Ithaca College sophomore Sawyer Hitchcock was named Empire 8 Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year and head coach Jim Nichols was selected E8 Coach of the Year.
 
Hitchcock earned Empire 8 Rookie of the Year for men's cross country and outdoor track & field in 2012-13. During the 2014 outdoor season, he won an Empire 8 championship in the 5,000-meter run, while placing first and second, respectively, in the 3,000 steeplechase at the NYSCTC and ECAC Championships. He ran to a season-best time of 9:23.44 at the Penn Relays – the 33rd-best Division III time in the nation.
 
Nichols was named outdoor coach of the year for the seventh consecutive season after guiding Ithaca to its eighth straight Empire 8 outdoor title. Ithaca outscored the second-place team by 72 points, while earning 12 all-conference honors by virtue of five first- and seven second-place finishes. Ithaca placed third at the NYSCTC Outdoor Championships, its 15th time finishing in the top three during the Bombers' 28-year involvement with the conference, before placing 12th at the outdoor ECAC meet.