McLean County Times

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Illinois Wesleyan University women's cross country and track and field teams have achieved notable recognition as senior Lauren Wong and junior Annalese Chudy were awarded College Sports Communicators Academic All-America honors. Wong was named to the Second Team, while Chudy earned a spot on the Third Team, according to an announcement made by the organization on Tuesday, July 9.

Wong and Chudy are now the ninth and tenth Academic All-Americans in the program's history. They are also the first recipients of this honor since Ayana Blair and Kelsey Wyman in 2021. These two pairs represent the only instances where more than one Titan has received Academic All-America honors in a single academic year.

The selections of Wong and Chudy bring Illinois Wesleyan's total number of Academic All-America honorees to 154 since the award's inception in 1952. This achievement places IWU among the top-10 in NCAA Division III and within the top-25 across all NCAA divisions (I, II, III) and NAIA.

Wong, a quantitative finance major with a 3.68 GPA, has earned her first Academic All-America distinction following her second Academic All-District selection three weeks ago. Her academic accolades include two United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) All-Academic awards, three years as an Academic All-CCIW selection, and membership in the Chi Alpha Sigma Honor Society.

Athletically, Wong qualified for the 2023 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships and was named a USTFCCCA All-Region selection in triple jump. She is a ten-time All-College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin honoree in triple jump and long jump events. In her senior season, she ranked sixth regionally for indoor triple jump (11.72m) and eleventh outdoors (11.28m). Nationally indoors, she was ranked twenty-first in triple jump.

Chudy, a junior neuroscience major with a 3.85 GPA, has also earned her first Academic All-America honor after securing her second CSC Academic All-District selection. She has been recognized as an Academic All-CCIW honoree for two consecutive seasons and was named a USTFCCCA All-Academic athlete twice at the end of cross country seasons.

In her junior year, Chudy became the only female Titan to qualify for back-to-back cross country NCAA Championships after finishing twenty-fifth at the NCAA Midwest Regional Championships where she earned USTFCCCA All-Region honors for the second time. She delivered a first-team all-conference performance at CCIW Cross Country Championships for two straight seasons contributing to IWU’s second-place team finish in 2023.

During indoor track season, Chudy posted regional rankings: twenty-fifth in 5,000m (18:16.45), thirty-sixth in 3,000m (10:41.87), forty-third in mile (5:18.04). Outdoors she ranked ninth regionally with a time of 36:36.18 in 10,000m—the seventh-fastest time by any Titan historically—and thirty-first regionally for outdoor 5,000m (18:11.37).

Across CCIW schools six women’s track athletes received this distinction; Illinois Wesleyan University along with North Central had two selections each while Augustana College and Wheaton College had one each.