ASHLAND – The Oregon Sports Awards on Sunday made Carolina Moreno the latest in a long line of Southern Oregon University's recent Ad Rutschman Women's Small College Athletes of the Year.
Moreno, who will seek a fourth consecutive national title in 2024-25, became the first-ever women's wrestler to garner the state's top honor. She shared it with George Fox's Alison Takamiya, a national champion golfer at the NCAA Division III level.
The award has gone to an SOU student-athlete four of the last five years it has been handed out. Cross country/track and field star Jessa Perkinson was the first women's winner in school history in 2018, followed by volleyball player Taylor Ristvedt in 2020 and softball player Riley Donovan in 2022. The only other school with more than one women's winner over the last 10 years is George Fox, which has produced two.
Moreno added the honor onto a 2023-24 résumé that already included a 130-pound NAIA championship, a 28-0 record with 10 pins and 14 technical falls, and the Cascade Conference Women's Wrestler of the Year award.
Dating back to 2022, the product of Somerton, Ariz., has won 41 consecutive matches. She captured NAIA championships as a freshman and sophomore at 123 pounds.
Moreno didn't surrender a single point in her latest run on the national stage. After pinning her first two opponents, she defeated her next three 31-0 combined with consecutive technical falls.
Already the all-time wins leader in SOU women's history, Moreno enters her final season with an 85-7 record. The education studies major has also been recognized multiple years as an NAIA Scholar Athlete.