McMINNVILLE, Ore. – Linfield mid-distance runner Lester Maxwell (Sr., Corvallis, Ore.) has been named Northwest Conference Men’s Track Student-Athlete of the Week after a pair of strong performances at the Pacific Luau meet. The award was announced Tuesday by the league’s sports information directors.

Maxwell won both the 400 (50.55) and the 800 (1:56.33) in Saturday’s meet, hosted by Pacific. Running the 400 for the first time this season, he qualified for the NWC Championships and also posted the fastest time by a Linfield runner in the event this year.

He had already qualified for the league championships in the 800, and his season-best time of 1:55.05 is the best in the conference by more than one second.

Last year at the conference championships, Maxwell was the runner-up in the 400 and ran the second leg on Linfield’s third-place 1,600 relay team.

This is the first career weekly honor for Maxwell and the first by a Linfield runner this season.

NEXT: The ‘Cats compete at the Rich Allen Classic, hosted by George Fox. Saturday’s field events begin at 10:30 a.m. and the running events start at 11:15 a.m.