Fall Frosty Awards Nominees: Male Athlete of the Year

The Carson-Newman Athletic Communications Department has been debutting the Frosty Award nominees for the fall semester.  These are the fall nominees for Male Athlete of the Year, the final category that we unveil over the holiday break. 

The sixth annual Frosty Awards will take place in late April and honor athletic excellence in Carson-Newman's athletic department. 

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Temoris Coats (Football): Coats turned in one of the best ever seasons by a Carson-Newman linebacker.  Coats led the Eagles with 96 tackles, 47 of which were solo stops. Most notably, he brought home state defensive player of the week honors from the Tennessee Sportswriters Association three times in his senior season and a program-record four times in his career.  He earned the three honors this year following C-N's wins over Virginia Union and Catawba, and a loss to Newberry. Coats inserted his name directly into the Carson-Newman record book with 18 tackles for loss on the year. He moved past Eric Rice who had 17 in 20\06 to take over the top spot for the single-season total for that stat. He wrapped up his career at Burke-Tarr Stadium with a 15-tackle effort against Lenoir-Rhyne to put a bow on his home career with a career-high for stops.  He had five double-digit tackle efforts on the year.

Phillip McDowell (Football): McDowell rewrote Carson-Newman's knockdown record book in his junior year. McDowell took over the Eagles' all-time record in career knockdowns in week six against Limestone. McDowell bypassed Robby Ignagni (44) and now has 57 for his career. While that alone is impressive, McDowell did it in grand fashion by besting his own single-game record with a whopping 10 knockdowns. McDowell played 54 snaps against the Saints. He had a knockdown every 5.4 plays. He helped Carson-Newman to lead the South Atlantic Conference in rushing yards with 347.6 yards per game on the ground.  The Eagles have the second highest rushing average in the country.

Antonio Wimbush (Football): Wimbush turned in another stellar season to earn All-SAC first team honors for the second time in his career.  He finished the season with 1,206 rushing yards to lead the South Atlantic Conference. The season-ending total represents the 18th best single-year on the ground for an Eagle rusher.  He found the end zone seven times on the ground and once more through the air.  Wimbush had a string of four straight 100-yard games at the mid-point of the season and finished the year with 100-yard rushing efforts in five of Carson-Newman's final six games.  He moved up to 11th on both Carson-Newman's career rushing yards and rushing touchdown charts.  Wimbush earned South Atlantic Conference Player of the Week honors following his performance at Virginia Union when he had 21 carries for 184 yards and three scores.  That rushing tally marked a career high for Wimbush. He also went for more than 150 yards rushing against both Limestone and Virginia-Lynchburg. His 8.0 yards per carry are the eighth highest single-season total in Carson-Newman football history and the second highest total in NCAA Division II this year.

Tobias Solem Karlsen (Men's Soccer): The junior forward recorded another standout season with D2CCA All-Region and All-South Atlantic Conference honors. He closed out the 2018 campaign with a team-high 10 goals, 27 shots on goal and 22 points. He brought in a team-leading five game-winning goals, tying the second-best mark for a single season in program history that he also set a year ago. Those five game-winners were the most in the conference and the 10th-most nationally. Solem Karlsen is now third in Carson-Newman for career game winners at 10. He led the conference in shots attempted with 67, a total that was enough for 19th in the nation, while sitting in the top-five of the league for goals and points, as well. He recorded three multiple-goal outings this year including a hat trick against Coker, giving him three hat tricks in his career.

Twan Verweij (Men's Soccer): In his final season, the senior goalkeeper started in all 17 games for the Eagles with the SAC's fourth-most saves at 62. His .756 save percentage was good enough for second in the conference. He notched two shutouts on the year in 3-0 wins over Clayton State and North Greenville, moving him to third-most in career program history at 10.1. He moved up the career leaderboard by the end of the year to eighth for saves with 114 and fifth-most wins at 17.

Luke Greer (Cross Country): In his final cross-country season Greer picked up right where he left off in 2017. Opening up the season at the Lenoir-Rhyne Invitational, he made slight work and won the 8k after coming off of an injury ridden summer and only having two weeks to train prior to the race. Every race after that he finished in the top-10: 7th at the Queens City Invitational, 5th at the Royals Challenge, 2nd at the SAC Championships, 2nd at the Southeast Region Championships and 8th place at the National Championships. On top of that, Greer set records two times this season for Carson-Newman in the 8k at the Royals Challenge with a time of 23:57, and in the 10k at the Region Championships with a time of 31:10. Greer is the first men's XC athlete to qualify for Nationals since 2005 and has done so two years in a row. On top of that, this season he earned himself All-Conference, All-Region and put a cherry on top of his outstanding season with his All-American honor at the National Championships.

Caleb Howell (Swimming): Howell collected four event wins alone in C-N's upset of No. 10 Wingate to open up the campaign. He has a total of eight individual wins through four meets and has broken two school records in different events. The Easley, S.C. native currently ranks fourth out of all D2 swimmers in the 200-breaststroke with a time of 1:58.79. Howell is also fourth in the nation in the 200 individual medley at 1:48.32.

Watch list: Grant Teichmann (MBB) ← good guy, works hard, loves the game. Tom Forster (Men's Golf), Jake Headrick (Men's Golf), Marcelo Figueirado (Swimming)