VICTORIA - Behind a trio of twop-20 finishers in both the women's 5K and the men's 8K, the Cloud County Community College cross country teams would run their way to a clean sweep of the team titles at the 2021 Fort Hays State University Tiger Open at the Sand Plum Nature Trail in Victoria on Saturday.
Kicking off the day with the women's black division 5K race, the T-Bird women would best the 16-team field by finishing with two runners in the top seven to total 68 points and beat Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference foe and race runner-up Dodge City who finished with 93 total points. Well back in third place would be Tabor College of the NAIA as the next three schools (Tabor, John Brown, and Kansas Wesleyan) would come from the NAIA before seeing Allen Community College in sixth (176 points) as the next NJCAA representative.
Pacing the T-Birds individually would be freshman Melody Ochana who would take sixth overall with a time of 19:07.20 to beat out teammate Lucy Ndungu who finished in seventh with a time of 19:07.80. CCCC would also get a 15th-place finish from Pamela Milano (19:22.80) to cap off the trio of top-20 runners while Christina Beard would have a season-best time of 19:46.0 to finish in 21st. Abigail Fisher (20:19.40) would come away with a 35th-place finish to cap off Cloud County's team score as the T-Birds would also have Emma Holthaus in 36th (20:22.40), Bailey Rock in 80th (22:12.10), and Clarissa Koch in 97th (23:32.40) take part in the race.
A much tighter team race would play out on the men's side as three of the top-five teams in this week's United States Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association NJCAA Division I Poll would be present in the race with Cloud County holding off Colby to win with 95 points to Colby's 107 points. Just seven points back in third would be Northwest Kansas Tech followed by NJCAA Division II Cowley College in fourth (163 points) as the top-four teams would all come from the NJCAA.
NJCAA runners would also make up the top 18 runners in the individual race as CCCC's Awet Beraki managed to claim fourth with a time of 23:50.20 while Michael Iyali (13th, 25:06.0) and Kelvin Kemboi (14th, 25:13.70) would both snag top-15 finishes. The T-Birds would also rely on a 30th-place finish from Linus Limo (26:22.30) and a 40th-place finish from Elmer Sotelo (26:43.50) to contribute to the 95-point team total while Rylan Cheney (54th, 27:15.20), Edwin Kipainoi (55th, 27:15.60), and Jose Julian Avila (139th, 29:35.20) also competed for Cloud County.
What's next?
CCCC will be off each of the next two weekends as the T-Birds will begin preparations for the 2021 NJCAA Region VI/KJCCC Championships in Colby, Kansas on Oct. 30. Both the women's 5K and the men's 8K will be held at Meadow Lake Golf Course in Colby with the races set for 10 AM (men's 8K) and 10:45 AM (women's 5K) on the 30th. Cloud County will enter as reigning Region VI/KJCCC West Division Champions on the women's side while the men will be vying for their third-straight Region VI/KJCCC West Division crown.