PITMAN, N.J. — The New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) announced its weekly honors today, Monday, May 3, and two New Jersey City University student-athletes were among the honorees. Junior first base Emma Herrick (Sayreville, N.J./Sayreville War Memorial) was selected as the Softball Player of the Week, while sophomore jumper Polina Agutina (Evaptoria, Poland/Number 6) was named Women's Track & Field Rookie of the Week. It is the first-career weekly honor for either Gothic Knight.

Herrick has been a bright spot for the Gothic Knights softball team this season. She leads the squad in batting average, total hits and is tied for the team high in runs batted in. Continuing her strong play this week, Herrick had a near-perfect on-base percentage (.900) over four games played and started. Overall, she was 6-for-7 (.857) at the plate with a pair of RBI, a run scored, was hit by three pitches, had a slugging percentage of .857 and a monster OPS of 1.757.

Additionally, in the field, she was perfect and did not notch a single error in 16 chances — she has not accounted for an error since April 25th of her freshman year. On Tuesday, April 27, in game one at home against Ramapo College, Herrick was 2-for-2 with a RBI and followed up in game two with another 2-for-2 performance, also getting hit by a pitch. In game one at home against Stockton University on Saturday, May 1, the junior was 1-for-1, got hit by two pitches and scored once and in game two, she was 1-for-2 with a RBI.

She and the rest of the Gothic Knights will return to action tomorrow afternoon, May 4, for a 4:00 p.m. single elimination game against Rutgers-Camden in Camden, N.J. The game is a First Round contest in the 2021 NJAC Softball Championship — this is the first time NJCU will compete in the conference tournament since the 2000 season.

On the track and field side of things, Agutina once again posted a dominant performance in the women's long jump this week and remains atop the NJAC standings in the event heading into NJAC Championships. The native of Poland placed third out of 17 in the long jump as the top Division III jumper with a distance of 5.14m — just 0.02m off of her top jump of the season, but still 0.10m better than any other NJAC jumper this season — at the Stockton Osprey Twilight on Friday evening, April 30, finishing behind a pair of Division II competitors from Georgian Court University. Her 5.16m jump from two weeks ago also ranks her 15th in the NCAA Division III Atlantic Region. Agutina was also the first leg of the women's 4x100m relay that placed second with a time of 53.98 — that time now ranks the squad third in the NJAC heading into this week's Championships.

Agutina and the rest of the men's and women's track & field squads return to action later this week and weekend for the 2021 NJAC Championships. Things get started on Wednesday and Thursday, May 5 and 6, with days one and two of multis competition, both hosted at 3:00 p.m. in Ewing, N.J., by The College of New Jersey. Then, on Saturday, May 8, starting at 11:00 a.m., all the women's teams will be competing at the NJAC Championships, hosted by Ramapo in Mahwah, N.J. The men will then compete for their championships, also in Mahwah, on Sunday, May 9, also starting at 11:00 a.m.