Cloud County Athletics
EMPORIA - Two event victories with a school-record performance on Friday night would set the stage for the Cloud County Community College men's track and field team to add another event win on Saturday to go along with five top-three finishes to win the 2022 Emporia State University Relays held at Francis G. Welch Stadium in Emporia.
Totaling 84 points in the 28-team meet that took place over three days, the T-Birds would outlast Lincoln University from the NCAA Division II ranks who finished as runner-up with 80 points just ahead of Fort Hays State University who rounded out the top-three with 75 points. The next-closest NJCAA competition for CCCC would be Indian Hills Community College in the meet, which finished with 64 points for a fifth-place finish.
The school-record performance for the T-Bird men would come in one of the final events of the day on Friday as freshman Kidus Misgina would post a national qualifying time of 14:28.29 in the 5,000 meters to best the 55-runner field and punch his ticket to the 2022 National Championship meet. Also running national qualifying times in the event would be Michael Iyali (15:23.54) and Edwin Kipainoi (15:25.07) as all three runners entered by CCCC running under the minimum time needed of 15:25.35.
Cloud County would also see Timothy Nyinguan come away as a winner in the triple jump on Friday following a mark of 15.01 meters (49 ft. - 3 in.) to join Misgina as the mark from Nyinguan would be the second national qualifying mark of the weekend. Freshman Ben Okraska would also earn a top-eight finish on Friday, posting a season-best mark of 4.60 meters (15 ft. - 1 in.) in the pole vault to come away in seventh.
Turning the page to Saturday would feature a number of big performances from CCCC as the day would begin with a third-place finish from the 4x100 meter relay team of Jonathan Dende, Narindra Rafidimalala, Shadrick Tansi, and Freider Fornasari as a time of 41.30 seconds would be just shy of the season-opening time of 41.14 that was ran last weekend. Rafidimalala and Fornasari would then join Alphonse Igish and Quwayne Reid in the 1,600 meter sprint medley relay as the relay team would take second with a time of 3:31.03 for one of three runner-up finishes on the day.
A pair of national qualifying times would come in the 400-meter hurdles courtesy of a sixth-place finish from Elias Rivera (54.48 seconds) and eighth-place finish from Davit Lukava (54.80 seconds) that would be followed by a third-place finish and national qualifying time in the 4x800 meter relay team coming from Raziel Patton, Reid, Cejay Morrison, and Hassan Abidi. Running a season-best time of 3:12.90 in the 4x400 meter relay would be Emmanuel Wanga, Tansi, Dende, and Nyinguan as the group would post a runner-up finish competing against 17 relay teams to finish off a day that featured four relay races with top-three finishes in each for Cloud County.
The lone event win for the T-Birds on the final day of the meet would come in the hammer throw from Mohamed Ahmed who would follow up last week's school-record performance with a mark of 60.94 meters (199 ft. - 11 in.). CCCC would also add a national qualifying mark from Misgina in the 1,500 meters (3:59.12) and Anson Moses in the javelin (53.13 meters, 174 ft. - 4 in.) to finish off the weekend with nine new national qualifying marks.
What's next?
The first of back-to-back weekends spent down in Wichita, Kansas is up next as Cloud County will take part in the 2022 Friends University Open beginning on Friday. Most of the competition from the two-day meet will take place on Saturday as the T-Birds continue their opening month of the outdoor season that is scheduled to be spent in the Sunflower State.