Cloud County cross country teams ranked third, fourth

NEW ORLEANS, La. - With one week of the season officially contested across the NJCAA landscape, the Cloud County Community College cross country teams find themselves both ranked inside the top-five of the first United States Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association NJCAA Division I Cross Country Polls of the year.

Coming off last year's fourth-place team finish at the 2020 NJCAA Championships, the Cloud County men find themselves ranked third thanks in part to returning four runners who scored as part of the fourth-place team finish a year ago. Only New Mexico Junior College and Iowa Central are ranked ahead of the CCCC in the opening poll with Northwest Kansas Tech and College of Southern Idaho rounding out the top-five. Five of the top-10 teams in the poll are from the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference, including Cloud County (third), NW Kansas Tech (fourth), Fort Scott (seventh), Butler (eighth), and Garden City (ninth). The T-Birds convincingly won their opening meet of the year at the Terry Masterson Twilight Classic in Hutchinson, Kansas by finishing with 65 points, 37 points better than runner up Cowley College as the field featured 10 different NJCAA teams as part of the 17-team field.

Last year's history making run towards an NJCAA National Runner-Up finish for the CCCC women has once again found the T-Birds inside the top-five of the National poll with Cloud County ranked fourth behind top-ranked College of Southern Idaho and New Mexico Junior College and Dodge City who tied in the initial poll of the year for second. Cloud County took third-place in their first meet of the year at the Terry Masterson Twilight Classic in Hutchinson, trailing NCAA Division II Washburn University who won the meet with 48 points to beat out Dodge City who finished with 81 points. The Thunderbirds would finish 24 points back of the Conquistadors with 105 points as only four members for Cloud County return from last year's National Runner-Up team.

Cloud County will have the weekend off in preparation of next week's Woody Greeno / Jay Dirksen Invitational which is dual hosted by Nebraska Wesleyan University and the University of Nebraska. The meet, which will take place in Lincoln, Nebraska, is back after a one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and will be ran on Mahoney Park Golf Course.  

-cloudtbirds.com-