GREENSBORO, N.C. – Junior Noah Ratner (Asheville, N.C./Asheville) and sophomore Johnathan Smith (Conyers, Ga./Salem) collected the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Player of the Week awards Monday. The awards are presented weekly by the league office.
Ratner, Guilford’s number-one golfer, led the Quakers to their fourth tournament victory of the season Mar. 13 at the TaylorMade-adidas Intercollegiate in Dataw Island, S.C. Ratner earned his fourth medalist honor of the season, tying the school record set by Bill Brooks ‘83 in 1983. Ratner shot 77-76-78-231 to win the 50-man tournament, besting second place by five strokes. He carded the low second-round score and the second-lowest first- and third-round totals. For his accolades, Ratner also earned this week’s Guilford College Student-Athlete of the Week Award, presented by the school’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
Ratner is ranked first among NCAA Men’s Division III players in Golfstat.com ratings as of Mar. 14. He averages 72.00 strokes per round after 15 rounds of play. Ratner has won the ODAC Golfer of the Week Award 10 times in his career, four times this season.
Smith, a sprinter, won the 200-meter dash and placed sixth of 63 contestants in the 100 at the Wake Forest Open Mar. 17 in Winston-Salem, N.C. He set school records in both events and was the lone Division III runner in the 100 finals. His 10.53 time in Friday’s 100-meter preliminaries broke the ODAC mark set by Bridgewater College’s Melvin Queen in 2008. Smith defeated 112 sprinters, mostly from higher NCAA divisions, to win the 200 in 21.26 seconds, lowering his own standard set a year ago.
The defending Division III national runner-up in the 200, Smith owns the top Division III outdoor times this season in the 100 and 200. He recently placed second in the 60-meter dash at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship Mar. 10.
The Student-Athlete of the Week Award is presented by Guilford’s SAAC, which is comprised of representatives from each of the school’s 20 varsity teams. The group meets regularly to discuss the state of Guilford Athletics and seeks to build community among Guilford’s student-athletes and non-student-athletes. Recent Guilford SAAC activities include cancer awareness promotions, canned-food drives, volunteer assistance with the North Carolina Special Olympics and tutoring at the New Garden Friends School.