BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Eastern Kentucky University freshman James Sugira has been voted the Ohio Valley Conference Male Indoor Track Athlete of the Year, the league announced on Tuesday.
 
Sugira ran the fastest 5,000 meters (13:37.8) and 3,000 meters (7:52.7) in the OVC this season. He also owns the fourth-fastest mile time in the conference (4:11.1).
 
He shattered the EKU indoor 5,000 meters record with a 13:37.8 at the Washington Husky Classic on February 8. That time is the fastest in the OVC by nearly 25 seconds, and it currently ranks No. 6 in the country.
 
Sugira ran a converted 3K time of 7:52.7 at the Camel City Elite six days earlier in Winston Salem, North Carolina. That time currently ranks No. 16 in the country.
 
He opened the indoor season by winning the mile with a time of 4:11.1 at the Thundering Herd Invitational on January 26.
 
Sugira has had a spectacular freshman year at EKU. The native of Kigalia, Rwanda was the OVC Male Cross Country Runner of the Year and individual OVC cross country champion in October. He then won the NCAA Southeast Region cross country title and was named the NCAA Southeast Region Male Athlete of the Year. He earned All-America honors after finishing 14^th at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Madison, Wisconsin.
 
Sugira is the sixth Colonel to be named OVC Male Indoor Track Athlete of the Year and the first since Jaime Esriche in 2016. Larry White (1984), John Nganga (1995), Steve Maina (2003) and Soufiane Bouchikhi (2012 and 2013) also earned the honor.
 
Other OVC indoor winners included Tennessee State's R'Lazon Brumfield (Male Field), SIUE's Ethan Poston (Male Freshman), Tennessee Tech's Purity Sanga (Female Track), Southeast Missouri's Anya Tong (Female Field) and Murray State's Ashlyn Oren (Female Freshman).
 
Sugira and the EKU men will look to defend their OVC indoor title this Wednesday and Thursday (February 20-21) at the CrossPlex in Birmingham, Alabama.