KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Missouri Western track and field senior Abby Kinney was named the 2025 MIAA Outdoor Track and Field "A Game Scholar-Athlete" by the conference office. She will be presented with the award during the championship's award presentation on Sunday evening.
 
Kinney, a distance runner from Waukee, Iowa, has a 4.0 grade point average as a population health management major with 116 completed credits. Kinney enters the outdoor championship with the third-best 10,000-meter run time in the league (37:59.45).
 
Fort Hays State junior thrower Jessica Saunders is also receiving this honor. She maintains a 4.0 GPA as an accounting major with 116 credits completed and holds the 11th-best discus throw in the MIAA at 150 feet, 11 inches.
 
Kinney and Saunders are the first student-athletes to share a championship's "A Game" Scholar-Athlete honor in the award's short history.
 
All 11 MIAA women's track and field programs are in Emporia, Kan., this weekend for the Association's 2025 Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Among the 100-plus NCAA Division II women's track and field athletes competing in the outdoor championship, Kinney and Saunders were both selected as the championship's "A Game" Scholar-Athlete, presented by Mammoth.
 
Established by the MIAA in 2022, the Mammoth "A Game" Scholar-Athlete Award acknowledges the overall excellence of a student-athlete by recognizing one individual who has contributed to their team's success while also achieving the highest academic standard among peers. The student-athlete honored with the "A Game" Scholar-Athlete Award must be an active member of a qualifying team and must have a minimum of two terms completed at the institution.
 
ABOUT MAMMOTH:
Mammoth Sports Construction is a full-service, turnkey sports company for schools and athletic complexes that can help design, budget, fundraise and build the projects of our partner's dreams. Mammoth offers complete design-build services and is respected nationally as an industry leader with projects completed at the highest levels of sports, including the NFL, Big 10 Conference, Northern Sun Conference, Big 12 Conference, MIAA Conference, Southeastern Conference, Heart of America Athletic Conference and many others nationwide. Mammoth is a family-owned and operated company with its corporate headquarters located in Meriden, Kansas, and an additional office in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Lenexa, Kansas.