BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Western Washington University Track & Field standouts Aliyah Dawkins and Cooper Cummings have swept the first GNAC T&F Athlete of the Week awards for the 2021-22 indoor season.
 
Junior Aliyah Dawkins placed 2nd out of seven competitors in the five-event Pentathlon at the Candy Cane Multis and junior Cooper Cummings was also runner-up in the seven-event Heptathlon out of 13 athletes in the two-day event held in Cheney, Washington.
 
Dawkins placed 2nd with 3,237 points trailing Eastern Washington's Margaret Nelson (3,425). Dawkins set a personal best in the 60m hurdles tying for the top spot in 9.12 seconds, retaining her No. 4 spot in the WWU Indoor Record book. The junior All-American won the high jump clearing 1.68m/5-6) and placed second in the long jump (5.45m/17-10.75). Dawkins fell just short of her school-record mark 3,310 points set in 2020.
 
Cummings came in 2nd with 4,300 points, falling just short of his personal-best mark of 4,412 points set at the 2020 GNAC Indoor Championships (4th in WWU history). He finished the competition with a pair of second-place finishes by clearing 4.20m/13-9.25 in the pole vault and clocking 3:02.01 in the 1,000m. Cummings was just 42 points behind champion Elijah Conley of Eastern Washington.
 
The Vikings are back in action next Saturday sending a contingent of competitors to the Spokane Invitational and the newly-opened The Podium.