BY JOHN BARRY – Phoenix – Hawaii Pacific University’s Casey Sugihara (Softball), Kevin Enriques (Men’s Cross Country), and Amanda Tanchanleun (Women’s Cross Country), were named the PacWest Scholar Athlete of the Year for their respective sports. The announcement came today by the PacWest Media Office.
HPU, along with Grand Canyon and BYU-Hawaii, led the conference each with a trio of scholar athlete of the year selections. The sports information directors of the conference nominated and voted for the awards, and will later vote on the overall PacWest Men’s and Women’s Scholar Athlete of the Year.
Sugihara (Mililani, HI), a senior on this year’s NCAA National Champion softball team, started four seasons for HPU with three All-Conference selections. In addition to leading HPU to the National Title, she batted .331 with 47 runs scored and seven doubles. Sugihara was also named HPU’s Softball Scholar Athlete of the Year.
Enriques (Honolulu), was named to the All-PacWest Second-Team this season. The senior Accounting major finished 13th at the 2009 PacWest Cross Country Championships. Tanchanleun, a junior from Aiea, HI, also finished 13th at the PacWest Cross Country Championships and was a Second-Team All-Conference selection. She is majoring in Nursing at HPU.
John Barry is the Sports Information/Marketing Director for Hawai’i Pacific University