TicketsCINCINNATI — Baseball standout Quinton Coats and track and field record-holder Juliette Laracuente-Huebner have been named Cincinnati’s Big 12 Athlete of the Year nominees, the conference office announced Wednesday. The winners of the awards will be announced at noon ET July 23.
Coats earned All-America honors this past season from ABCA/Rawlings, Baseball America, College Baseball Foundation, D1Baseball, NCBWA and Perfect Game. In addition to his All-America accolades, Coats was also named the NCBWA District 5 Player of the Year and earned All-Region honors from ABCA/Rawlings. The Olathe, Kan., native turned in one of the best offensive seasons ever by a Bearcat, setting single-season school records in home runs (28) and total bases (183) while tying the single-season RBI record (79). Coats hit .339 and slugged .738 and ended his season ranking among the Top 10 nationally in home runs, total bases and RBI.
Off the field, Coats has been named to the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll three semesters, is a 2026 Big 12 Spring All-Academic Team honoree and a two-time UC Dean’s List selection. He volunteered 16.5 hours during the 2025-26 Academic Year.
An incredibly decorated track and field standout and winner of the Bob Bowlsby Award, the Big 12’s highest individual honor, Laracuente-Huebner set five school records during her historic 2025-26 campaign, establishing the UC indoor record for the pentathlon with 4,442 points, the UC indoor record in the 60m hurdles at 8.24 seconds, the UC indoor long jump record at 6.36 meters, the UC outdoor record for the heptathlon with 6,086 points and the UC outdoor long jump record at 6.42 meters. Her phenomenal year is further highlighted by being named the 2026 Big 12 Track and Field Scholar Athlete of the Year, capturing the 2026 Outdoor Big 12 Champion title in the heptathlon, earning 2026 Outdoor First Team All-American honors with a runner-up finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championship, claiming the 2026 Indoor Big 12 Champion title in the pentathlon and securing a third-place finish as a 2026 Indoor First Team All-American at the NCAA Indoor Championship.
Laracuente-Huebner graduated in the spring after three years with a degree in speech-language hearing sciences and a 4.0 cumulative grade-point average. The native of Marengo, Ohio is a two-time Spring All-Academic Team honoree and spent eight semesters on the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll and the UC Dean’s List. Laracuente-Huebner has volunteered 24 hours over the past two years and is a two-time Ally Sidloski BEARCATS STRONG honoree.