PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The American Athletic Conference has announced the winners of the league’s 2019 Runner of the Year awards for cross country, as voted on by the conference’s cross country head coaches.
 
For the third straight season both individual cross country champions in The American earned Runner of the Year accolades, as Cincinnati senior Aaron Bienenfeld was named the Men’s Cross Country Runner of the Year and Wichita State junior Winny Koskei repeated as the Women’s Cross Country Runner of the Year.
 
Men’s Runner of the Year
Aaron Bienenfeld * Sr. * Cincinnati
Bienenfeld capped a standout senior season with wins in all four of his starts in 2019. He opened the fall at the Rhodes College Invitational at Shelby Farms Park in Memphis, Tennessee, racing to the 8K title with a time of 24:10.1 to claim conference runner of the week honors. Bienenfeld outpaced 131 other runners at the Under Armour NCAA Pre-National Invitational in October in Terre Haute, Indiana, with a winning effort of 24:04.5 to down the runner-up by more than 40 seconds. He added his first career American Athletic Conference championship in a return to Shelby Farms Park in November, logging a championship meet run of 23:43.46 to establish a course record and win by nearly 30 full seconds. In his final start of the season, Bienenfeld brought home the NCAA Great Lakes Regional individual title with a victorious 10K time of 29:59.9 in Madison, Wisconsin. In lieu of entering the 2019 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, Bienenfeld instead traveled to his native Germany and qualified for the German Under-23 team that is set to compete at the 2019 European Championships.
 
Women’s Runner of the Year
Winny Koskei * Jr. * Wichita State
Koskei became the first repeat winner of the Women’s Runner of the Year award after enjoying a stellar junior campaign for Wichita State. She secured conference weekly honors on Sept. 10 with a 4K race win at the JK Gold Classic (13:48.5) in Wichita, Kansas. Koskei next turned in an impressive showing at the Bill Dellinger Invitational in Eugene, Oregon, posting a 10th-place finish in the 6K with a time of 20:14.5. Running at the Under Armour NCAA Pre-National Invitational in Terre Haute, Indiana, Koskei placed seventh in the women’s 6K with a time of 20:23.8. She rode the momentum from NCAA Pre-Nationals into the American Athletic Conference Championship meet at Shelby Farms Park in Memphis, repeating as the women’s 6K champion with a triumphant time of 20:14.18. Koskei later added a third-place result at the NCAA Midwest Regional (20:34.9) in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and narrowly missed out on All-American honors in 47th place (20:55.1) at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships in Terre Haute.