PITTSBURG -- Sophomore Pamela Milano would take home the gold in the 600 meters as the Cloud County Community College women's track team would use five national runner-up finishes to move up two spots from fifth to finish in third place at the 2021 NJCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships at the Robert W. Plaster Center and Harvey Dean Track in Pittsburg on Saturday.
After starting the day with 20 total points, the T-Birds would make a big move to close out the two-day meet by scoring 81 points to finish with a total of 101 points and trail only national champion Iowa Western (117 points) and South Plains College (108 points). Finishing in fourth behind the T-Birds would be Barton Community College with 93 points while Iowa Central would round out the top-five with a fifth-place finish (70 points).
Milano's national championship performance would come in a time of 1:32.82 as Cloud County would have three runners finish in the top six of the 600 meters with Leonie Beu (1:36.56) and Tashira Edwards (1:41.06) taking fourth and sixth to give CCCC 18 points from the event. Putting together a pair of national runner-up finishes on the day would be sophomore Patricia Koma as the Wichita, Kansas native would take second in the 1,000 meters with a time of 3:02.14 after placing second in the mile run with a time of 5:07.87 earlier in the day.
Action for CCCC on Saturday would actually get started with a national runner-up performance as the Cloud County 4x800 meter relay team of Ludjenie Mondesir, Tashira Edwards, Passion Crews, and Kya Johnson would put together a time of 9:46.26 to take home the silver before seeing Mercy Ntia-Obong take second in the 60 meters with a time of 7.44. The T-Birds would also get a national runner-up finish from Marie Forbes in the shot put (13.48 meters, 44 ft. - 2.75 in.) and a third-place finish from the 4x400 meter relay team of Beu, Ntia-Obong, Isila Apkup, and Milano in a time of 3:46.02 to cap off seven top-three finishes in events.
The rest of the action for Cloud County on day two of the national championship meet would see fourth-place finishes from Apkup in the 400 meters (56.81) and Ntia-Obong in the 200 meters as well as Milano in the 800 meters (2:19.59). Macyee Callihan would also contribute towards the team scoring total by taking sixth in the shot put (12.43 meters, 40 ft. - 9.25 in.) in her only event of the national championship meet.
What's next?
Having made it through the indoor season, Cloud County will now begin preparations for the 2021 outdoor season which will get underway in the coming weeks. A schedule for the outdoor season is currently being finalized as the T-Birds continue to navigate through changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and will release their outdoor season schedule at a later date. Once the schedule is finalized, it will be posted on www.cloudtbirds.com.