Hurta And Penner Named Tom Hansen Medal Recipients
SAN FRANCISCO – CU student-athletes Sage Hurta and Caleb Penner were named Wednesday as the 2020-21 honorees of the Pac-12 Tom Hansen Conference Medals.
The honor is awarded annually to each of the Pac-12 member institution's outstanding senior male and female student-athlete based on the exhibition of the greatest combination of performance and achievement in scholarship, athletics and leadership.
Hurta was the 2021 NCAA Indoor Mile National Champion and a seven-time All-American for the Buffs. She is only the second CU woman to earn All-America honors in cross country all four years and was a member of the 2018 NCAA National Championship team as well as the 2017 NCAA Indoor DMR National Championship. She owns both the indoor and outdoor 800 school records and was a two-time Pac-12 Champion in the steeplechase and 800.
Outside of running, Hurta owned a 3.98 GPA in chemical and biological engineering, earning an A 44 of 45 classes at CU. She was named a CoSIDA Google Cloud Academic All-American Second Team honoree in 2019 and bumped that up to a First Team honoree in 2020. She was also named the 2019 Pac-12 Women's Scholar Athlete of the Year in cross country.
Penner finished his career the sixth-best performer in CU history in the men's weight throw. He helped the CU men score at the Championships of the Peak after finishing eighth in the weight throw, earning himself a letter for scoring at a conference meet. He competed at four conference meet for Colorado in his career.
In the classroom, Penner was unrivaled with a 3.98 GPA in applied mathematics and a 4.00 GPA this year while pursuing his Master's. Penner owned the best GPA for a CU male student-athlete for three-straight years. He was a four-time Pac-12 Academic Team/Honor Roll member, MPSF All-Academic in 2018, the Bryon R. White Leadership and Initiative Award winner, an eight-time Deal's List honoree and nine-time AD's Honor Roll member. He had all A's in his entire career, just three A- grades brought him down to a 3.985.
Other's honored were: David Laskin (Golf) and Gitte Heynemans (Tennis) for Arizona, Nathan Ponwith (Tennis) and Olivia Mehaffey (Golf) for Arizona State, Darren Baker (Baseball) and Deshae Wise (Track) for Cal, Hunter Kampmoyer (Football) and Lydia Giomi (Basketball) for Oregon, Ethan Thompson (Basketball) and Aleah Goodman (Basketball) for Oregon State, Oscar da Silva (Basketball) and Kiana Williams (Basketball) for Stanford, Zach Pettway (Baseball) and Michaela Onyenwere (Basketball) for UCLA, John Thomas (Baseball) and Anna Cockrell (Track) for USC, Ola Jordheim (Skiing) and Alyssa Barrera (Softball) for Utah, Elijah Molden (Football) and Sis Bates (Softball) for Washington, and Emmanuel "Ray Ray" Wells Jr. (Track) and Charisma Taylor (Track) for Washington State.