Cloud County Sports Information
WICHITA - Taking part in a 36-team meet over the course of three days, the Cloud County Community College men's track and field team would earn four event wins as part of 17 top-eight finishes and five national qualifying marks at the 2023 Friends University Open at Adair-Austin Stadium in Wichita.
No team scores would be held for the event as teams from NCAA Division I, II, the NAIA, and NJCAA coming from six different surrounding states (South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma).
THURSDAY RECAP
Multi-events along with the hammer throw would kick off the action on Thursday afternoon with the T-Birds getting an event win in the hammer throw from the NJCAA leader Mohamed Ahmed who would record a mark of 59.85 meters (196 ft. - 4 in.) while finishing as one just three athletes to go over 50 meters in the event. In the decathlon, Anson Moses would get off to a quick start with an event win in the shot put (12.20 meters, 40 ft. - 0.25 in.) to go along with a runner-up finish in the long jump (6.72 meters, 22 ft. - 0.5 in.), high jump (1.83 meters, 6 ft. - 0 in.), and 400 meters (52.58 seconds) to set up what would become a high-finish on day two.
FRIDAY RECAP
Picking things back up on Friday with the remaining events of the decathlon, Moses would add a first-place finish in the 110-meter hurdles (14.95 seconds) before finishing third in the discus (30.04 meters, 98 ft. - 6 in.) and win in the javelin (44.28 meters, 145 ft. - 3 in.) to earn the top overall spot in the decathlon following the 10 events with an NJCAA leading score of 6.379 points. Another event win on Friday would come in the pole vault with sophomore Ben Okraska clearing 4.73 meters (15 ft. - 6.25 in.) to best a 25-person field and continue his climb up the NJCAA leaderboard to now sit in fourth in the NJCAA Outdoor Track performance list. The remaining two events to take place with CCCC athletes on Friday would be the long jump where Lubo Zlatev would record a mark of 7.16 meters (23 ft. -6 in.) for a sixth-place finish while Davis Mick would take seventh in the javelin with a throw of 42.76 meters (140 ft. - 3 in.).
SATURDAY RECAP
With most events saved for the final day, Cloud County would have top-eight finishes come throughout the day along with an event win in the final event of the meet as Leroy Kamau, Emmanuel Wanga, Hassan Abidi, and Shadrick Tansi would come together to post a 4x400 meter relay time of 3:15.28 to win the event while beating out teammates Jonathan Dende, Alphonse Igish, Mason Schurr, and Daniel Siaffa who would post a runner-up time of 3:18.19. The 4x100 meter relay team (Emmanuel Anis, Kamau, Wanga, and Igish) would also earn a runner-up finish in their event by running a time of 40.97 seconds to help lead the track events while also seeing Abidi run an 800-meter time of 1:52.09 to finish second and Siaffa take second in the 400 meter hurdles with a time of 55.40 seconds.
Other track events on Saturday that would see top-eight finishes for the T-Birds included fifth-place finishes from Siyabonga Mokgothu in the 1,500 meters (3:58.41) and Kidus Misgina in the 5,000 meters (14:38.40) with the time for Misgina hitting a new national qualifying mark for CCCC. Cloud County's final top-eight finish on the track would come from reigning Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Track Athlete of the Week in Kamau who would take eighth in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 10.69 seconds.
In field events, four different athletes across three events would come away with top-eight finishes highlighted by a win in the triple jump from Oageng Mdlela (14.91 meters, 48 ft. - 11 in.). Awakhiwe Ndlovu would finish second in the event after recording a mark of 14.85 meters (48 ft. - 8.75 in.) before going on to see Vincent Ugwoke hit a national qualifying mark and finish third in the discus (52.65 meters, 172 ft. - 9 in.) and Arne Roehl place fifth in the high jump (1.97 meters, 6 ft. - 5.5 in.).
What's next?
A return trip to Wichita for the second-straight weekend will see Cloud County compete in the 2023 KT Woodman Classic held at Wichita State University beginning on Friday before concluding on Saturday. Action will begin at 6 p.m. on Friday evening with the shot put and javelin along with the distance carnival of events before starting back up at 11 a.m. on Saturday with a full day of action wrapping up around 6:45 p.m.