MSU-N announces Athletes of the Year

Though the Montana State University-Northern athletic department wasn’t able to hold its annual awards banquet, they still were able to announce their 2019-2020 Athletes of the Year.

The announcement came during Friday night’s MSU-N Spring Fling, which was held remotely, since it couldn’t be done in person due to COVID-19.

The Northern Male Athlete of the Year went to junior wrestler Nick Kunz. The native of Helena captured the 2020 NAIA national championship at 125 pounds last month. Kunz, who became Northern’s most recent national champion, was also named an NAIA Scholar Athlete for the 2019-2020 season under head coach Tyson Thivierge.

Northern cross country runner Allison Tigert was named the Northern Female Athlete of the Year. Last fall, Tigert became just the second runner in MSU-N cross country history to qualify for the NAIA national championships.

Tigert, from Vacaville, California, ran a 20:14.7 in the women’s 5K at the NAIA championships back in November in Vancouver, Washington. She placed 218th out of 339 runners.

In more Northern wrestling news, Friday, the National Wrestling Coaches Association announced the full slate of 2019-2020 Scholar All-American Team and Individual honorees for NAIA Men with awards going to 73 individuals representing 25 institutions.

Montana State University-Northern took second in the NWAC 2020 NAIA Men's Top 10 Scholar All-American with a team GPA of 3.368. There were two MSU-Northern wrestlers who got the individual award, and they were Kunz and Isaac Bartel. Kunz is majoring in business administration. Isaac Bartel took second at Nationals and is majoring in agriculture operations technology.