FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Running in a rare Friday afternoon competition on the 2021 schedule, the Cloud County Community College women's and men's cross country teams would push their way to a fifth-place finish on the women's side and 22nd-place finish on the men's side at the Chile Pepper Festival held at the Washington County Fairgrounds in Fayetteville, Ark.
Both races would be conducted under muggy conditions with impending rain moving into the surrounding area throughout the races in what would otherwise be weather in the mid-'70s with partly cloudy sky coverage.
Taking part in the women's Prairie Fire Pepper 5K race, the T-Bird women would finish with a team score of 175 total points to trail Hastings College of the NAIA who won the meet by one point over NCAA Division II Oklahoma Christian with 91 points along with Harding University (117 points) and Missouri S&T (145 points). CCCC would finish as the top NJCAA school by 51 points to beat out fellow Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference school Cowley College who would take eighth with 226 points and Ranger College who took ninth with 275 points.
Cloud County's top individual finisher would be freshman Lucy Ndungu who would take 17th with a time of 19:25.30 to beat out teammate Ludjenie Mondesir who would take 19th by coming in two-tenths of a second slower at 19:25.50. Not far behind the top-two T-Birds would be Pamela Milano who would earn a 34th place finish with a time of 20:02.20 while Melody Ochana would finish 49th with a time of 20:27.30 to give CCCC four top-50 finishers. Cloud County would also have Abigail Fisher finish in 56th with a time of 20:34.80 as well as Emma Holthaus in 66th (20:46.20), Christina Beard in 75th (20:54.40), and Clarissa Koch in 158th (23:10.80) as part of the 237-runner field.
The CCCC men would run later in the afternoon as part of the McDonnell Memorial Men's 8K race as a total of 10 teams that ranked inside the top-20 of their respective NCAA, NAIA, and NJCAA Divisions would be squaring off directly against each other. Winning the meet with nearly a 100-point gap between first and second would be NCAA Division II co-number one Colorado School of Mines beating out NCAA Division II fourth-ranked Augustana by a score of 39-131. Western Colorado (178 points) and Alabama-Huntsville (192 points) would finish off a top-four dominated by NCAA Division II schools as NCAA Division I number-eight ranked Arkansas would take fifth after tying with the Chargers with 192 points. Amongst NJCAA schools, Iowa Central would be the top finishing team in 12th with 376 points followed by Cowley College (17th, 493 points), and Cloud County.
Individually, sophomore Awet Beraki would be CCCC's top finisher with a time of 25:19.30 to take 58th while Michael Iyali would finish in 77th with a time of 25:29.70. Cloud County would then see Edwin Kipainoi as their next top-finisher in 135th with a time of 26:12.30 while Kelvin Kemboi (180th, 26:43.80) and Linus Limo (244th (27:29.20) would round out the T-Bird team score. CCCC would also have Rylan Cheney (250th, 27:44.30), Elmer Sotelo (253rd, 27:47.80), and Raziel Patton (307th, 30:02.50) run in the meet as part of a 328-runner field.
What's next?
Cloud County will face their one and only weekend of the year where they race in consecutive weeks as the T-Birds will be heading over to Victoria to take part in the Fort Hays State Tiger Invitational on Oct. 9. The meet, which will get underway at 9 a.m., will feature two women's races and two men's races with the final race slated to start at 11 a.m.
Oct 02, 2021
Cloud County cross country takes part in Chile Pepper Festival
Posted Oct 02, 2021 4:31 PM