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University of Cincinnati track & field/cross country signee Michael Vitucci roped in a pair of accolades this past week with being named the 2014-15 Gatorade Ohio Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year and the Ohio Milesplit 2014 Male Athlete of the Year.
Last spring, Vitucci won the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division I 1,600-meter run and also anchored St. Xavier’s boys 4x800-meter relay to a state title and new state record of 7.36:33.
Vitucci continued his success into cross country this fall as he went undefeated in races in Ohio, which includes winning the OHSAA DI boy’s race with a time of 15:34.53 and aiding the Bombers to a third-place finish as a team. His lone regular season loss was a fourth-place finish in the Trinity/Valkryie Invitational in Louisville, Kentucky, which featured 188 of the top runners in the Midwest.
Vitucci will join the Bearcats this upcoming fall to begin training with UC’s cross country program, which has finished second the last two seasons at the American Athletic Conference Cross Country Championships.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade high school sports leadership team in partnership with USA TODAY High School Sports, which work with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.
MileSplit is the nation's premier network for high school track & field and cross country. Designed around a powerful proprietary database software that unites all of the important aspects of covering the sport--results, rankings, articles, videos, photos, statistics, etc--MileSplit is the only online publisher in the sport with the tools to provide a high level of timely and comprehensive nationwide coverage