From staff reports

sports@joplinglobe.com

Area athletes grab MIAA awards

Four athletes from Missouri Southern and Pittsburg State — two from each school — earned MIAA Athlete of the Week honors on Monday.

MSSU track and field performers Jacob Williams and Jessica Selby-Tallman were recognized for their field efforts.

Williams, a senior from Chanute, Kan., grabbed an automatic qualifying mark to nationals in the pole vault with his third-place finish at the Nebraska Wesleyan Prairie Wolf Invitational. He logged the top mark in Division II this season with a vault of 17 feet, 1 inch — the first time he had cleared more than 17 feet.

Selby-Tallman — a senior from Galena, Mo. — won the weekly award for the fourth time this season after she was the top Division II finisher in the shot put and weight throw with automatic qualifying marks at the UCM Classic. She was third in the shot with a mark of 49-11 and took fifth in the weight throw at 57-7.

Pittsburg State’s Cory Abercrombie was the Men’s Basketball Player of the Week while Jeremy Jackson was named the Men’s Track Athlete of the Week.

Abercrombie, a 6-foot-7 senior from Piedmont, S.C., averaged 23 points and 11 rebounds in Pitt State’s two games last week. He had 26 points and 11 boards in an 88-71 home win over Emporia State and scored had 20 points and 11 rebounds in a 76-71 road loss to No. 18 Southwest Baptist.

Jackson, a junior from Burton, Texas, logged an automatic qualifying mark in his first competition of the season at the UCM Classic.

He won the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 7.97 seconds, a personal best.

Jackson, an outside linebacker for the Gorilla football team, had missed most of the season recovering from a leg injury.

Three more players

sign with Crowder

NEOSHO, Mo. — Two Neosho High School players and one from Carthage plan to sign soccer commitments to Crowder Junior College at 12:30 p.m. today in the Crowder Student Center.