TOWSON, Md. --- Moravian College senior Natalie Novotni has been selected as the 2020-21 Landmark Conference Senior Scholar-Athlete for Women's Cross Country.
The Landmark Conference selects 22 senior scholar athletes each year to recognize the top student-athlete in each sport based on academics and athletics. The honorees must have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.20 and are selected by a committee of Landmark Conference officers, athletics directors, senior woman administrators and sports information directors. Chosen at the conclusion of each sport season, the six fall honorees are being announced this week as the conference completed its spring exhibition season due to the pandemic.
In three seasons, Novotni was a two-time Landmark Conference Champion, winning the conference meet in both 2018 and 2019 to earn Landmark All-Conference First Team honors while being selected as the Landmark Conference Performer of the Year. She had a winning 6,000-meter time of 22:58.6 as a sophomore and a first-place time of 23:03.5 as a junior. As a team, the Greyhounds finished third in her freshman season when Novotni was 30th in the meet, and then runner-up in 2018 and 2019. She was a pair of Top 70 finishes at the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional with a 32nd in 2018 and a 67th in 2019.
Novotni also competes on Moravian's Track & Field Teams. She won the 2020 Landmark Women's Indoor Track & Field titles in the 3,000-meter run and 5,000-meter runs, and Novotni was also the conference champion in the 5,000-meter run in 2019 and the runner-up in the 3,000-meter run at the same meet. As a sophomore, she earned Landmark Women's Outdoor Track & Field All-Conference Second Team honors in the 5,000-meter run with a runner-up finish.
Outside of the course and track, Novotni has maintained a 3.94 GPA in nursing at Moravian. Novotni will be an eight-time Landmark Conference Academic Honor Roll selection, and she is a two-time member of the Chi Alpha Sigma National College Athlete Honor Society. She's made the Dean's List seven times during her time with the Greyhounds. Novotni is also a two-time selection for the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Cross Country All-Academic (3.30 GPA or higher and top 25% finish in NCAA Regional).
"Natalie has been a special student-athlete for us over the past four years," stated Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Jesse Baumann. "She is a quiet perfectionist who works as hard as anyone I've worked with. As a student, she's had one of the strongest GPAs of any nursing student I've seen in my decade at Moravian so it's no surprise she's already secured a job as an ER nurse here in the Lehigh Valley.
"As an athlete, she made arguably the biggest jump I've ever seen as a coach, going from a 20:40 5k runner in high school to running 17:53 this weekend and winning two Landmark Cross Country Championships along the way," continued Baumann. "If not for an illness the crept up at the last minute last in November of 2019, I'm certain she would have been running at XC NCAAs, and the fitness level she showed this fall makes it hard for me to fathom she wouldn't have been in contention for All American honors if we had the NCAAs in 2020. Fortunately, we have another two months to try to get her to an NCAA Championship she is long overdue to qualify for!"
Novotni is Moravian's 35th Landmark Conference Senior Scholar-Athlete since the conference began in 2007-08, and she is the fourth women's cross country student-athlete to be honored from the Moravian program.
