ASHLAND – Southern Oregon University cross country coach Grier Gatlin and senior runner Jessa Perkinson have been awarded top NAIA West Region honors for 2017, as announced by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.

Gatlin, who also leads SOU's track and field teams, was voted the NAIA West Region Men's XC Coach of the Year by his peers. A year after accepting the NAIA Coach of the Year award for overseeing the Raiders' second national title, Gatlin's men's team won its 10th consecutive Cascade Collegiate Conference championship and went on to take fourth place Saturday at the NAIA Championships with three All-America runners.

Since returning to SOU in 2011, Gatlin has led the Raider men at the national meet to first place, second place three times, third place and fourth place. He also guided the team's first individual NAIA cross-country champion since in 35 years, Eric Avila, in 2013.

Perkinson was voted the NAIA West Region Women's XC Runner of the Year, the first in SOU history. It's not the only history she's made history in recent weeks: On Nov. 4 she became SOU's first women's winner at the CCC Championships, running the 5,000-meter Lanes Farm course in La Grande in 17:47.8 for an 18-second victory, and on Saturday in Vancouver, Wash., she topped SOU's best-ever women's finish for the third year in a row at the NAIA Championships with a runner-up showing in 17:20 – which also made her the first 10-time overall NAIA All-American in school history.

In four meets prior to the postseason Perkinson was the top collegiate finisher three times. She was twice voted the NAIA Women's Runner of the Week, following titles at the William Jessup Warrior Invite and the Lewis & Clark Invite.

Perkinson, a senior from Roseburg and two-time national champion, will compete as a Raider for the last time during the upcoming track and field season.