Elliott, Hilliard Earn Top Great Lakes Region Awards from USTFCCCA
| 2026 NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Regional Awards |
SPRINGFIELD, OH — Cameron Elliott (Springfield, OH/Springfield) and Head Coach Paris Hilliard have earned special recognition from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA), the organization announced on Thursday, March 19. Elliott was selected the NCAA Division III Great Lakes Region Men's Indoor Track Athlete of the Year and Hilliard was chosen as the NCAA Division III Great Lakes Region Men's Indoor Coach of the Year.
The top regional award is a first in Elliott's outstanding collegiate career as he becomes the second Wittenberg student-athlete to garner the accolade. Victor Banjo earned NCAA Division III Great Lakes Region Men's Indoor Track Athlete of the Year in 2014.
For Hilliard, the regional award is the first of his career as a men's coach. He also picked up NCAA Division III Great Lakes Region Women's Indoor Coach of the Year awards in 2020 and 2023.
Elliott earned a trio of All-North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) awards at the league's 2026 Indoor Championships, thanks to a third-place finish in the 200-meter dash, a stellar leg of the first-place 4x400-meter relay, and the highlight reel performance in the 400-meter dash as Elliott won the event by a mere .01 over his teammate, Jack Kittle. Both runners broke the previous school and conference records, and their times were good for first and second in the Great Lakes Region and third and fourth in all of NCAA Division III. After collecting a host of All-NCAC awards in the first three years of his intercollegiate track career, Elliott claimed his first individual league honor as he was named NCAC Indoor Sprinter/Hurdler Athlete of the Year.
Elliott, who also broke the school record in the 500-meter dash during the 2025-26 indoor season, earned All-Great Lakes Region in three events. He ranked first in the 400-meter dash, and he also posted marks that earned top-eight rankings individually in the 200-meter dash and as a member of the Tigers' 4x400-meter relay. It was the second straight year that Elliott earned all-region recognition across the three sprint events.
The punctuation mark on an amazing indoor portion of the 2025-26 season came at the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships on March 14 in Birmingham, Alabama, as Elliott earned his first All-America award with a third-place finish in the 400-meter dash in a time of 47.52 seconds. The third-place NCAA finish is the second-best in school history, trailing only Skip Ivery in the 55-meter hurdles in 2003.
Hilliard led the Tigers to their third straight NCAC Men's Indoor Track & Field team title with a comeback for the ages. Wittenberg trailed eventual runner-up Wabash by 60 points early on Day 2 of the meet, but the Tigers rallied to win the title by 11 points over the Little Giants and more than 40 over pre-meet favorite John Carroll. The Tigers ranked in the top three in the region throughout the season, including several weeks at No. 1, and Wittenberg ranked in the top 25 nationally throughout the campaign as well.
Hilliard guided three Tigers to the NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Championships, as Elliott was joined at the national event by Kittle and fellow sophomore Kory Davis in the 400-meter dash and the 60-meter hurdles, respectively. Kittle earned second-team All-America honors with a 12th-place finish, while Elliott and Davis both earned first-team All-America awards after placing third and sixth in their respective events. Together, Elliott and Davis scored nine points, Wittenberg's most ever in an Indoor Championships, and the Tigers placed 18th overall, the best in program history.
Written By: Ryan Maurer