Junior swimmer Hunter Armstrong and senior defender Sophie Jaques earned Ohio State Male and Female Athletes of the Year, the athletic department announced Friday. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Lantern File photo
Junior swimmer Hunter Armstrong and senior defender Sophie Jaques earned Ohio State Male and Female Athletes of the Year, the athletic department announced Friday.
Armstrong and Jaques will now appear on the ballot for Big Ten Athletes of the Year, which will be announced later this month.
Armstrong became the first men’s swimmer to collect the award for Ohio State’s top male athlete. He’s the second Buckeye swimmer to earn the recognition, as Susan Gottlieb received the 1989-90 Female Athlete of the Year.
According to a release, Armstrong is currently in Budapest, Hungary, representing the U.S.by competing in the 2022 FINA World Championships, which adds to his accomplished year.
Ohio State broke 11 short-course program records last year, and Armstrong was involved in seven of them. Additionally, he earned four honorable mention All-American honors in freestyle, freestyle relay and medley relay events and placed First Team All-America after a fifth place finish in the 100-meter backstroke during the 2022 NCAA Championship in March.
Armstrong won Big Ten titles in the 200-meter medley relay, 400- and 200-meter freestyle relays and 100- and 50-meter freestyle last season. He picked up where he left off in college competition after earning a gold medal during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as part of the 4×100 men’s medley relay team. The Dover, Ohio, native also set the world record with a time of 23.71 seconds in the 50-meter backstroke at the U.S. International Team Trials April 28.
Jaques capped a record-breaking year by helping Ohio State women’s ice hockey win its first National Championship March 20. Two Buckeye women’s ice hockey players have won Female Athlete of the Year in the last three seasons as defender Jincy Dunne did so in 2019-20.
Jaques led the Buckeyes with 59 points last season, which broke previous program single-season bests for both a Buckeye defender and skater. Ohio State set a new program record with 32 wins last season, going 32-6 and 21-6 in WCHA play.
Ohio State’s first Top-3 finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award recognizing the top women’s ice hockey player at the Division I level, Jaques earned First Team All-American honors by the American Hockey Coaches Association and CCM Hockey in addition to the First Team All-Western Collegiate Hockey Association last season.
During a season in which she won WCHA Defender of the Year, Jaques led the Buckeyes with 38 assists and 11 power play goals. Jaques also became the first Ohio State recipient of the 2022 Arthur Ashe Jr. Female Sports Scholar of the Year announced by the Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine, according to a release April 28.
