T-Bird cross country teams move up in latest USTFCCCA NJCAA polls

NEW ORLEANS - Ahead of this weekend's action in the 2021 Fort Hays State University Tiger Open, the Cloud County Community College cross country teams would both make moves up the rankings in the latest United States Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association NJCAA Division I Cross Country Polls released on Wednesday.

Using a three-spot promotion, the Cloud County women now find themselves ranked sixth and the highest Kansas Jayhawk Communty College Conference school among the 24 teams ranked in the third edition of this year's poll while the CCCC men would make a two-spot jump to move from fifth to third in this week's poll.

The move from fifth to third for the T-Bird men matches their highest ranking of the year as Cloud County would start the year ranked third and is currently trailing only top-ranked Iowa Central and Colby while ranking ahead of fourth-ranked Southern Idaho and fifth-ranked Northwest Kansas Tech. CCCC finished as the second-highest NJCAA program at last weekend's Chile Pepper Festival behind only the top-ranked Tritons and have four of their five scoring members back from last year's national fourth-place finishing team.

Finding themselves one spot out of making a return into the top-five, the Cloud County women would account for the biggest jump up in the women's poll this week as no other team would move up more than two spots in the poll. Topping this week's poll would be Southern Idaho followed by Iowa Western and Iowa Central while New Mexico Junior College and Central Arizona round out the top-five. The T-Birds would earn a fifth-place finish out of 30 teams at the Chile Pepper Festival last weekend in Fayetteville, Arkansas while placing two runners (Lucy Ndungu, Ludjenie Mondesir) in the top-20 of the 237-runner field.

This weekend's FHSU Tiger open will get underway with the women's 5K at 9 a.m. while the men's 8K will start at 9:35 a.m. The meet is being held at the Sand Plum Nature Trail in Victoria with nearly 800 total participants expected to run across the four races being held.

-cloudtbirds.com-