Stonehill's Hall of Fame Cross Country and Track & Field head coach is College's 14th representative featured in national publication
EASTON, Mass. (August 3, 2017) – Stonehill College Hall of Fame men's and women's cross country and track & field head coach Karen Boen is featured in the "Faces in the Crowd" section of the August 7 issue of Sports Illustrated which went on sale today.
Boen is recognized in the magazine, with Brazilian National Team superstar Neymar on the cover, for earning the 50th Coach of the Year award of her 19-year coaching career at Stonehill following the outdoor track & field season. She led the Skyhawks women's cross country and track & field programs to a sweep of the Northeast-10 Conference Championships during the fall, winter and spring seasons for the second straight year in 2016-17 and third time in four years. Boen was tabbed NE10 Coach of the Year all three seasons, as well as East Region Coach of the Year from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) for cross country and outdoor track & field.
Boen is the 14th representative of the Stonehill athletics department, and second head coach, to be recognized by Sports Illustrated in its "Faces in the Crowd" section. She joins 12 former student-athletes, including her former track & field All-Americans, Kevin and Keith Gill (4/7/2008) – with Keith having since joined Boen in the Stonehill Athletics Hall of Fame. Also featured from the College have been: women's lacrosse All-Americans Katie Lambert (6/16/2003), now the head coach at Stonehill, Lauren Stone (5/10/2005) and Erin Acone (6/12/2006), field hockey standouts Caitlin Gleason (10/2/2006) and Aly Boulis (10/22/2007), Rob Pascale (12/29/2003), Brendan O'Brien (2/20/2006) and Tyler Jackson (1/11/2010) from the ice hockey team, women's basketball honorable mention All-American Kelsey Simonds (1/23/2006), and football All-American Stephan Neville (9/26/2011) and former head coach Robert Talley (12/30/2013).
Boen earned five Coach of the Year awards for the 2016-17 academic year, including her second NE10 Coach of the Year honor for outdoor track & field this spring. She guided Stonehill to its eighth-straight NE10 Cross Country Championship last fall, its 15th in program history overall, a fourth consecutive NE10 Indoor Championship in February and third NE10 Outdoor Track & Field Championship in May. Additionally, the cross country team captured its second straight East Regional title, and 14th in program history overall, to earn the program's 17th-straight trip to the NCAA Division II Championships. Stonehill is one of just two programs to sweep all three NE10 titles since the Conference has sponsored both track & field and cross country. The University of Massachusetts Lowell women completed the sweep of all three titles for the first time in the 2005-06 academic year, and again in 2008-09, but no team has swept all three titles over three years like Stonehill.
Boen has earned NE10 Coach of the Year honors for women's cross country 14 times, men's cross country five times and men's and women's indoor and outdoor track & field eight times combined. She has also been named East Region Coach of the Year by the USTFCCCA a combined 23 times for cross country and track & field. Boen was inducted into the Stonehill Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014.
Stonehill men's and women's cross country open their 2017 season when it competes at the Shacklette Invitational, hosted by Saint Anselm College, on Saturday, September 2.
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