STEPHENVILLE, Texas — Tarleton State Track and Field highlighted a successful indoor track season with head coach Bobby Carter being named WAC Women's coach of the Year, Victoria Cameron tabbed WAC Women's Athlete of the Year, Jalen Cadet named WAC Men's Athlete of the Year and JayBrion Jones selected as Men's Co-Freshman of the Year, the conference office announced on Thursday afternoon.
 
Before this season, the Texans had only earned one freshman of the year honor on each the men's and women's side of indoor track and field. This year, the men swept both WAC Athlete and Freshman of the Year, and Cameron becomes the Texans first WAC Indoor Women's Athlete of the Year. Head coach Carter is the first coach in program history to win WAC Coach of the Year in either men's or women's.
 
Head coach Bobby Carter led the Texan women to the program's first ever WAC title, the first track conference championship in any conference in program history. The women set a new school record with 180.5 total points. The Texan women also brought home seven gold medals. The Texans set two new All-time WAC Records and WAC Championship meet records. After their title, the women's program was ranked 22nd in the nation in this week's USTFCCCA poll, the highest ranking by any Texan Track and Field program in its Division I era. At the WAC Championships, the Texans set seven new school records. Throughout the season, the Texan women broke nine total school records and set 35 new program top 10 bests.
 
Next weekend, the Texans will send five total athletes and three women to the NCAA Indoor National Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Coach Carter is in his second season as the Texan head coach, his first collegiate head coaching spot. He has made a major difference in his first two seasons taking the Texans to the NCAA National Championships in both indoors and outdoors for the first time in their D1 history. He helped lead Prestina Ochonogor to a pair of First Team All-American performances in the long jump at the indoor and outdoor national championships last year, the first in D1 program history.
 
Victoria Cameron earned the Women's Athlete of the Year a season after being named the Freshman of the Year in last year's indoor slate. She was also named the Female Athlete of the Year for the outdoor season last year. Cameron becomes the first since the WAC Freshman of the Year Award originated in 1997 to win the Freshman of the Year and then win the WAC Female Athlete of the Year in the following year. She becomes the third to win both the freshman and athlete of the year in separate years throughout her career.
 
This year, Cameron broke her own all-time WAC record in the 60 meters in both the prelims and the finals. Last year, she set the all-time record of 7.14 seconds during the regular season and won the WAC title in 7.21 seconds to set the new meet record. This year, she ran 7.09 seconds in the prelims to break them both and then one-upped herself with a 7.08-second performance in the finals to break her own records again. She claimed back-to-back WAC titles in the 60 meters, the fourth to accomplish the feat since 1999. She is the first woman to do it in the Division I era.
 
Her 7.08 seconds performance is not only the best in the WAC but is tied for the best in the NCAA this season. She will be making her second-consecutive appearance at the Indoor National Championships. Last year, she was a Second Team All-American in the 60. This year she enters as the top time and is one of five returners to the field from a year ago. She enters the competition with the 13^th best time in the world this year.
 
Jalen Cadet was tabbed the Men's Athlete of the Year after scoring the most points by a male at the WAC Championship last weekend. Cadet was named the Co-Most Outstanding Men's Field Performer of the Meet scoring 16 points in the field. Cadet totaled 21 at the meet adding five points with a fourth-place finish in the men's 200. The senior was the only athlete to record three top four finishes on the men's side in both field and track events.
 
Cadet won the WAC title in the long jump with a best leap of 7.72 meters. It surpassed his personal best from the regular season of 7.60 meters. With his new mark, Cadet ranked 31^st in the NCAA and holds the third best mark in Texan history. In addition to the long jump, the senior was one of three Texans at the top of the podium in the high jump earning the bronze medal with a season-best clearance of 2.00 meters. In the 200, the UTEP transfer posted the second-fastest time in the prelims in 21.21 seconds, the third fastest time in school history. In the finals, he placed fourth in 21.32 seconds.
 
In his collegiate season debut JayBrion Jones was named the Men's Co-Freshman of the Year with Utah Valley's Sila Kiplagat. The freshman made his mark in the prelims of the 60 meters running, at the time, the fifth-fastest mark in the NCAA in 6.54 seconds. Jones blazed down the lane breaking his collegiate record by 0.23 seconds and breaking the school record. Jones held over a tenth of a second advantage in the prelims winning by a wide margin. In the finals, Jones took the crown clocking in at 6.59 seconds, the second overall best mark in school history. The freshman will continue his indoor season at the NCAA Indoor Championships next week.
 
Jones will be the first Texan men's track athlete to compete at a Division I Indoors or Outdoors NCAA Championship. He is one of just two non-Power four runners and one of two freshmen among the 16 men selected. The freshman enters the championships tied for the 10^th fastest in the NCAA and is tied for the 33^rd fastest time in the world this year. Jones is tied for ninth among US-born men this year.
 
In total, five Texans will head to Fayetteville, Ark. for the 2026 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships on March 13-14. All five will begin their title quests on Friday with the track finals on Saturday at the Randal Tyson Track Center.