HIGHLAND – With a strong start to the 2021 indoor campaign, the Cloud County Community College women's track and field team would record seven NJCAA national qualifying marks in their season-opening event at the Highland Challenge in Highland on Saturday.
The seven qualifying marks came as part of a 210-point performance from the T-Birds in the four-team event, besting host Highland, Garden City, and Cowley in the event.
Sophomore Marie Forbes would be responsible for two of CCCC's three national qualifying marks in the field event portion of the event, taking victories in the shot put with a throw of 14.23 meters (46 ft. – 8.25 in.) and weight throw (16.28 meters, 53 ft. – 5 in.) in her only events of the day. Freshman Georgia Bell would record the other field event mark to qualify for the Indoor National Championships by clearing 3.09 meters (10 ft. – 1.5 in.) in the pole vault while winning the event.
A pair of NJCAA national qualifying marks would be set in both the 55 meters and 600 meters as Mercy Ntia-Obong would (6.99) and Isila Apkup (7.22) would take a one-two finish in the 55 meters that would be converted over to 60-meter qualifying times. In the 600 meters, Pamela Milano (1:35.77) and Leonie Beu (1:37.74) would also take the top-two times in the event while posting times that qualify for the Indoor National Championships.
The final NJCAA Indoor National Qualifying Mark would come from Apkup, Milano, Beu, Ntia-Obong combined for a 4x400 meter relay time of 3:59.75. The time would be nearly five seconds faster than the baseline time that the NJCAA has set as all four were part of two national qualifying marks on the day.
Other event wins for Cloud County on Saturday afternoon would see Ludjenie Mondesir take victory in the 1,000 meters (3:19.28), and Patricia Koma posted winning times of 11:07.83 in the 3,000 meters and 2:29.30 in the 800 meters. Apkup would take the win in the 200 meters with a time of 26.13 to finish off the top-times for CCCC as the T-Birds accounted for 11 event victories.
What's next?
With one meet in the books, Cloud County will be back in action a week from today on Jan. 23 when they make the trip over to Topeka to compete in the Washburn University All-Kansas Invitational. The meet is expected to feature a mix of NCAA Division II, NAIA, and NJCAA schools.
--cloudtbirds.com--