LOWELL, Mass. – After shining at the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener at Boston University this past weekend, graduate student Jan Wouter van den Akker (Groningen, Netherlands) of the UMass Lowell men's track and field team was named America East Male Track Performer of the Week, as announced by the conference Tuesday afternoon.

The distance runner competed alongside the nation's best in the 5,000m on Saturday, finishing in 61st place out of 199 total finishers with an impressive personal-best time of 13:54.77 tog ive him his first conference weekly award of the indoor season.