Flaherty, Flanagan Named Athletes of the Year
6/21/2018 10:00:00 AM | General, Men's Cross Country, Men's Track & Field, Women's Basketball
• MGoBlue.com Awards | Michigan Athletes of the Year
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan Athletic Department announced Thursday (June 21) that Katelynn Flaherty (women's basketball) and Ben Flanagan (men's track and field/cross country) have been named the 2017-18 U-M Athletes of the Year.
Flaherty is the first women's basketball player to win the award. Flanagan is the fourth men's track and field/cross country student-athlete to be named the Athlete of the Year and the first since Mason Ferlic in 2016.
Both student-athletes are eligible to be named Big Ten Conference Athletes of the Year, the winners of which are determined by a media vote. The University of Michigan Athlete of the Year Award was first presented in 1982.
The following are biographical sketches on Flaherty and Flanagan:
U-M FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR
Katelynn Flaherty (Women's Basketball)
Flaherty concluded her illustrious career as Michigan's all-time leading scorer -- man or woman -- with 2,776 points. She leaves Michigan as the career leader in points, field goals made (984), three-point field goals made (410), double-figure scoring games (127) and 30-point games (13). Flaherty's 410 three-pointers put her second all-time in NCAA Division I history and she is just the second player to ever hit at least 400. Her points total ranks fifth in Big Ten women's basketball history.
As a senior this past season, she led Michigan to 23 wins and the second round of the NCAA Tournament after averaging 22.9 points, 2.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists in 36.8 minutes per game. A volume scorer and standing just 5-foot-7, Flaherty managed to shoot 44.3 percent from the field and a career-best 42.3 percent from three-point range. Flaherty scored in double figures in all but one game, stringing together 25 20-point games and three 30-point games. She set a single-game record with 10 three-pointers against Penn State on Dec. 28, en route to setting the single-season record with 118 over the course of the season. Her scoring average was fifth nationally, the second time she has finished in the top 10 in that category.
Flaherty was a unanimous All-Big Ten first teamer by both the coaches and the media, marking her third consecutive season with consensus first team honors. She was named to the WBCA All-Region team en route to earning All-America honorable mention for the third consecutive year. Flaherty also earned All-America honorable mention by the Associated Press, becoming the first Wolverine to earn AP mention. One of five finalists for the Nancy Lieberman Award for the nation's top point guard, Flaherty also won the Marines 3-Point Championship.
U-M MALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR
Ben Flanagan (Men's Track and Field/Cross Country)
Flanagan made the most of his final year at Michigan, winning an NCAA Outdoor Championships individual title at 10,000 meters in dramatic fashion and earning his first career cross country All-America honor at the NCAA Championships in the fall. Of the four individual national outdoor champion distance runners from the Big Ten, Flanagan stood alone among them as the conference's cross country All-American.
Entering the NCAA Outdoor Championships as the 23rd-fastest man in a 24-deep field that included eight of the top 11 finishers from the fall's NCAA Cross Country Championships, Flanagan ran the race of his life. The native of Kitchener, Ontario, outkicked pre-meet favorite Vincent Kiprop of Alabama in the final 100 meters to clinch the national title in 28:34.53 -- a 39-second career-best and just nine seconds off the school record. No Michigan man since John Scherer in 1989 had won the NCAA crown at that distance. He began his outdoor postseason run by reclaiming his Big Ten title at 10,000 meters from 2016.
His cross country season was every bit as successful, capped by a 20th-place finish at the NCAA Championships for the Big Ten's lone All-America honor in the race. Flanagan was the Wolverines' leader in every race of the season, including an individual victory at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional. He led his U-M squad from unranked nationally in the preseason to 10th at the NCAA Championships, first in the Big Ten and second in the NCAA Great Lakes Regional. For his achievements, he was named the Runner of the Year for both the Big Ten and the Great Lakes Region.
During the indoor season, Flanagan ran a career-best 13:48.58 for the 5,000-meter distance, narrowly missing qualification for the NCAA Indoor Championships. He would take sixth in the Big Ten final at that distance.
Players Mentioned
