Cloud County Sports Information
WICHITA - Closing out the opening month of the season with two school records and 10 top-10 finishes, the Cloud County Community College women's track and field team would add three new national qualifying marks to their total at the two-day Wichita State University Herm Wilson Invitational inside the Heskett Center in Wichita.
No team scores were kept for the event which featured a large number of teams from NCAA Division I, II, the NAIA, and NJCAA.
Friday recap
Despite having a limited number of athletes in action on Friday, CCCC would make the most of those competing with three top-10 finishes and a school record would be broken to get the weekend off to a strong start. Multi-event athlete Vanessa Mercera would place in the top four of the 60-meter hurdles (9.35 seconds), high jump (1.67 meters, 5 ft. - 5.75 in.) long jump (5.15 meters, 16 ft. - 10.75 in.), and 800 meters (2:28.21) while finishing fifth in the shot put (9.99 meters, 32 ft. - 9.5 in.) to run up a total of 3,501 points to finish second and shatter her previous school record of 3,375 points.
Also competing on Friday, a pair of T-Bird athletes in the pole vault would earn top-10 finishes with both Jasmine Sakaguchi (3.59 meters, 11 ft. - 9.25 in.) and Mia Manley (3.29 meters, 10 ft. - 9.5 in.) posting season-best marks to take fourth and 10th in a 27-competitor field. Cloud County's lone other top-10 marks on Friday would come from sophomore Mallory Callihan in the weight throw with a mark of 14.13 meters (46 ft. - 4.25 in.) to clear her previous season best by nearly three feet.
Saturday recap
Another top-10 finish from Callihan in the shot put (11.69 meters, 38 ft. - 4.25 in.) would set up a successful Saturday that would see three new national qualifiers and another school record for the T-Birds. Having previously broken her own school record in the 60-meter hurdles last weekend, Miracle Thompson would break her own record for a second-straight week by posting a preliminary time of 8.52 seconds before posting a time of 8.35 seconds in the finals to surpass her old time of 8.39 seconds in an event victory. Thompson would also post a preliminary time of 7.69 seconds in the 60 meters before running a season-best time of 7.48 seconds as part of a national qualifying time and second event victory.
Also earning an event victory on Saturday would be Passion Crews in the 800 meters with a national qualifying time of 2:22.63 to best a 31-runner field. CCCC's final national qualifying mark on Saturday would come from sophomore Melody Ochana in the 1,000 meters as a sixth-place finish would come in a time of 3:09.82 to take sixth overall. Closing out the night with one final top-10 finish would be the 4x400 meter relay team with a time of 4:26.97 to take 10th in the last event of the meet.
What's next?
Cloud County will participate in two different meets next weekend with split-squad action taking the T-Birds to Lincoln, Neb., for the University of Nebraska Frank Sevigne Husker Invitational and Topeka for the Washburn University Open and Multi-Events. Both meets will begin on Friday and finish up on Saturday.